Relatively there are few large sores on the people such as boils and ulcers, but a person may have a dozen or half a hundred itching eruptions the size of a half pea scattered over his arms, legs, and trunk.  From these he habitually squeezes the pus onto his thumb nail, and at once ignorantly cleans the nail on some other part of the body.  The general prevalence of this itch is largely due to the gregarious life of the people —­ to the fact that the males lounge in public quarters, and all, except married men and women, sleep in these same quarters where the naked skin readily takes up virus left on the stone seats and sleeping boards by an infected companion.  In Banawi, in the Quiangan culture area, a district having no public buildings, one can scarcely find a trace of skin eruption.

There are two adult people in Samoki pueblo who are insane; one of them at least is supposed to be affected by Lumawig, the Igorot god, and is said, when he hallooes, as he does at times, to be calling to Lumawig.  Bontoc pueblo has a young woman and a girl of five or six years of age who are imbecile.  Those four people are practically incapacitated from earning a living, and are cared for by their immediate relatives.  There are two adult deaf and dumb men in Bontoc pueblo, but both are industrious and self-supporting.

Igorot badly injured in war or elsewhere are usually killed at their own request.  In May, 1903, a man from Maligkong was thrown to the earth and rendered unconscious by a heavy timber he and several companions brought to Bontoc for the school building.  His companions immediately told Captain Eckman to shoot him as he was “no good.”  I can not say whether it is customary for the Igorot to weed out those who faint temporarily —­ as the fact just cited suggests; however, they do not kill the feeble aged, and the presence of the insane and the imbecile shows that weak members of the group are not always destroyed voluntarily.

PART 3

General Social Life

The pueblo

Bontoc and Samoki pueblos, in all essentials typical of pueblos in the Bontoc area, lie in the mountains in a roughly circular pocket called Pa-pas’-kan.  A perfect circle about a mile in diameter might be described within the pocket.  It is bisected fairly accurately by the Chico River, coursing from the southwest to the northeast.  Its altitude ranges from about 2,750 feet at the river to 2,900 at the upper edge of Bontoc pueblo, which is close to the base of the mountain ridge at the west, while Samoki is backed up against the opposite ridge to the southeast.  The river flows between the pueblos, though considerably closer to Samoki than to Bontoc.

The horizon circumscribing this pocket is cut at the northeast, where the river makes its exit, and lifting above this gap are two ranges of mountains beyond.  At the south-southeast there is another cut, through which a small affluent pours into the main stream.  At the southwest the river enters the pocket, although no cut shows in the horizon, as the stream bends abruptly and the farther range of mountains folds close upon the near one.