On March 19, 1903, wise, rich Som-kad’, of ato Luwakan, and the oldest man of Bontoc, heard an anito saying, “Come, Som-kad’; it is much better in the mountains; come.”  The sick old man laboriously walked from the pabafunan to the house of his oldest son, where he had for nearly twenty years taken his food, and there among his children and friends he died on the night of March 21.  Just before he died a chicken was killed, and the old people gathered at the house, cooked the chicken, and ate, inviting the ancestral anitos and the departing spirit of Som-kad’ to the feast.  Shortly after this the spirit of the live man passed from the body searching the mountain spirit land for kin and friend.  They closed the old man’s eyes, washed his body and on it put the blue burial robe with the white “anito” figures woven in it as a stripe.  They fashioned a rude, high-back chair with a low seat, a sung-a’-chil (Pl.  XLI), and bound the dead man in it, fastening him by bands about the waist, the arms, and head —­ the vegetal band entirely covering the open mouth.  His hands were laid in his lap.  The chair was set close up before the door of the house, with the corpse facing out.  Four nights and days it remained there in full sight of those who passed.

One-half the front wall of the dwelling and the interior partitions except the sleeping compartment were removed to make room for those who sat in the dwelling.  Most of these came and went without function, but day and night two young women sat or stood beside the corpse always brushing away the flies which sought to gather at its nostrils.

During the first two days few men were about the house, but they gathered in small groups in the vicinity of the fawi and pabafunan, which were only three or four rods distant.  Much of the time a blind son of the dead man, the owner of the house where the old man died, sat on his haunches in the shade under the low roof, and at frequent intervals sang to a melancholy tune that his father was dead, that his father could no longer care for him, and that he would be lonely without him.  On succeeding days other of the dead man’s children, three sons and five daughters, all rich and with families of their own, were heard to sing the same words.  Small numbers of women sat about the front of the house or close in the shade of its roof and under its cover.  Now and then some one or more of them sang a low-voiced, wordless song —­ rather a soothing strain than a depressing dirge.  During the first days the old women, and again the old men, sang at different times alone the following song, called “a-na’-ko” when sung by the women, and “e-ya’-e” when by the men: 

Now you are dead; we are all here to see you.  We have given you all things necessary, and have made good preparation for the burial.  Do not come to call away [to kill] any of your relatives or friends.