Sa-gan-ma’ is the sixth period.  It is the time when the sementeras to be used as seed beds for rice are put in condition, the earth being turned three different times.  It lasts about two months.  November 15, 1902, the seed rice was just peeping from the kernels in the beds of Bontoc and Sagada, and the seed is sown immediately after the third turning of the earth, which thus ended early in November.

Pa-chog’ is the seventh period of the annual calendar.  It is the period of seed sowing, and begins about November 10.  Although the seed sowing does not last many days, the period Pa-chog’ continues five or six weeks.

Sa’-ma is the last period of the calendar.  It is the period in which the rice sementeras are prepared for receiving the young plants and in which these seedlings are transplanted from the seed beds.  The last Sa’-ma was near seven weeks’ duration.  It began about December 20, 1902, and ended February 10, 1903.  Sa’-ma is the last period of the season Ka-sip’, and the last of the year.

The Igorot often says that a certain thing occurred in La’-tub, or will occur in Ba-li’-ling, so these periods of the calendar are held in mind as the civilized man thinks of events in time as occurring in some particular month.

The Igorot have a tradition that formerly the moon was also a sun, and at that time it was always day.  Lumawig told the moon to be “moon,” and then there was night.  Such a change was necessary, they say, so the people would know when to work —­ that is, when was the right time, the right moon, to take up a particular kind of labor.

Folk tales

The paucity of the pure mental life of the Igorot is nowhere more clearly shown than in the scarcity of folk tales.

I group here seven tales which are quite commonly known among the people of Bontoc.  The second, third, fourth, and fifth are frequently related by the parents to their children, and I heard all of them the first time from boys about a dozen years old.  I believe these tales are nearly all the pure fiction the Igorot has created and perpetuated from generation to generation, except the Lumawig stories.

The Igorot story-tellers, with one or two exceptions, present the bare facts in a colorless and lifeless manner.  I have, therefore, taken the liberty of adding slightly to the tales by giving them some local coloring, but I have neither added to nor detracted from the facts related.

The sun man and moon woman; or, origin of head-hunting

The Moon, a woman called “Ka-bi-gat’,” was one day making a large copper cooking pot.  The copper was soft and plastic like potter’s clay.  Ka-bi-gat’ held the heavy sagging pot on her knees and leaned the hardened rim against her naked breasts.  As she squatted there —­ turning, patting, shaping, the huge vessel —­ a son of the man Chal-chal’, the Sun, came to