Babes have no cradles or stationary places for rest or sleep.  A babe, slumbering or awake, is never laid down alone because of the fear that an anito will injure it.  At night the babe sleeps between its parents, on its mother’s arm.  It spends its days almost without exception sitting in a blanket which is tied over the shoulder of one of its parents, its brother, or its sister.  There it hangs, awake or asleep, sitting or sprawling, often a pitiable little object with the sun in its eyes and the flies hovering over its dirty face.  Frequently a child of only 5 or 6 years old may be seen with a babe on its back, and older children are constant baby tenders.  Babes may be found in the fawi and pabafunan where the men are lounging (Pl.  XXXII), and the old men and women also care for their grandchildren.  Grown people quite as commonly carry the babe astride one hip if they have an empty hand which they can put around it, and often a mother along the trail carries it at her breast where it seemingly nurses as contentedly as when in the shade of the dwelling.

Children are generally weaned long before they are 2 years old, but twice I have seen a young pillager of 5 years, while patting and stroking his mother’s hips and body as she transplanted rice, yield to his early baby instinct and suckle from her pendant breasts.

After the child is about 2 years of age it is not customary for it to sleep longer at the home of the parents; the girl goes nightly to the olag, and the boy to the pabafunan or the fawi.  However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule, and the age at which the child goes to the olag or fawi depends much on circumstances.  The length of time it sleeps with the parents doubtless depends upon the advent or nonadvent of another child.  If a little girl has a widowed grandmother or aunt she may sleep for a few years with her.  During the warmer months one or two children may sleep on the stationary broad bench, the chukso, in the open part of the parents’ house.  It is safe to say that after the ages of 6 or 7 all children are found nightly in the olag, pabafunan, or fawi.  I have seen a group of little girls from 4 to 10 years old, immediately after supper and while some families were still eating, sitting around a small blaze of fire just outside the door of their olag.  The Igorot child as a rule knows its parents’ home only as a place to eat.  There is almost an entire absence of anything which may be called home life.

Naming

The Igorot has no definite system of naming.  Parents may frequently change the name of a child, and an individual may change his during maturity.  There are several reasons why names are changed, but there is no system, nor is it ever necessary to change them.