Bontoc pueblo is no exception to the rule that every pueblo in the Philippines has a few people with curly or wavy hair.  I doubt whether to-day an entire tribe of perfectly straight-haired primitive Malayan people exists in the Archipelago.  Fu-nit is a curly-haired Bontoc man of about 45 years of age.  Many people told me that his father and also his grandfather were members of the pueblo and had curly hair.  I have never been able to find any hint at foreign or Negrito blood in any of the several curly haired people in the Bontoc culture area whose ancestors I have tried to discover.

The scanty growth of hair on the face of the Bontoc man is pulled out.  A small pebble and the thumb nail or the blade of the battle-ax and the bulb of the thumb are frequently used as forceps; they never cut the hair of the face.  It is common to see men of all ages with a very sparse growth of hair on the upper lip or chin, and one of 50 years in Bontoc has a fairly heavy 4-inch growth of gray hair on his chin and throat; he is shown in Pl.  XIII.  Their bodies are quite free from hair.  There is none on the breast, and seldom any on the legs.  The pelvic growth is always pulled out by the unmarried.  The growth in the armpits is scant, but is not removed.

The iris of the eye is brown —­ often rimmed with a lighter or darker ring.  The brown of the iris ranges from nearly black to a soft hazel brown.  The cornea is frequently blotched with red or yellow.  The Malayan fold of the upper eyelid is seen in a large majority of the men, the fold being so low that it hangs over and hides the roots of the lashes.  The lashes appear to grow from behind the lid rather than from its rim.

The teeth are large and strong, and, whereas in old age they frequently become few and discolored, during prime they are often white and clean.  The people never artificially stain the teeth, and, though surrounded by betel-nut chewers with dark teeth or red-stained lips, they do not use the betel.

Since the Igorot keeps no record of years, it is impossible to know his age, but it is believed that sufficient comparative data have been collected in Bontoc to make the following estimates reliable: 

At the age of 20 a man seems hardly to have reached his physical best; this he attains, however, before he is 25.  By 35 he begins to show the marks of age.  By 45 most of the men are fast getting “old”; their faces are seamed, their muscles losing form, their carriage less erect, and the step slower.  By 55 all are old —­ most are bent and thin.  Probably not over one or two in a hundred mature men live to be 70 years old.

The following census taken from a Spanish manuscript found in Quiangan, and written in 1894, may be taken as representative of an average Igorot pueblo: 

Census of Magulang, district of Quiangan

Years
Females
Males

0 to 1 191 200

1 to 5 209 210