When the palay is in the milk a great many birds which feed upon it are captured by means of a broom-like bundle of runo.  As the birds fly over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib’, through the flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird.  The ka-lib’ is about 7 feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end.  What the ka-lib’ really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet long and a long open hand a foot and a quarter wide.

Fishing

The only water available to Bontoc pueblo for fishing purposes is the river passing between it and her sister pueblo, Samoki.  In the dry season, where it is not dammed, the river is not over six and eight rods across in its widest places, and is from a few inches to 3 feet deep.  All the water would readily pass, at the ordinary velocity of the stream, in a channel 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

Three methods are employed in fishing in this river —­ the first, catching each fish in the hand; the second, driving the fish upstream by fright into a receptacle; a third, a combined process of driving the fish downstream by fright and by water pressure into a receptacle.

The Igorot seems not to have a general word for fish, but he has names for the three varieties found in the river.  One, ka-cho’, a very small, sluggish fish, is captured during the entire year.  In February these fish were seldom more than 2 inches in length, and yet they were heavy with spawn.  The ka-cho’ is the fish most commonly captured with the hands.  It is a sluggish swimmer and is provided with an exterior suction valve on its ventral surface immediately back of the gill opening.  This valve seems to enable the fish to withstand the ordinary current of the river which, in the rainy season, becomes a torrent.  This valve is also one of the causes of the Igorot’s success in capturing the fish, which is not readily frightened, but clings to the bed of the stream until almost brushed away, and then ordinarily swims only a few inches or feet.  Small boys from 6 to 10 years old capture by hand a hundred or more ka-cho’ during half a day, simply by following them in the shallow water.

The ka-cho’ is also caught in great numbers by the second or driving method.  Twenty to forty or more men fish together with a large, closely woven, shovel-like trap called ko-yug’, and the operation is most interesting to witness.  At the river beach the fishermen remove all clothing, and stretch out on their faces in the warm, sun-heated sand.  Three men carry the trap to the middle of the swift stream, and one holds it from floating away below him by grasping the side poles which project at the upper end for that purpose.  The two other men, below the trap at its mouth, put large stones on their backs between the shoulder blades, so they will not float downstream, and disappear beneath the water.  As quickly as possible, coming up a dozen times to breathe during the process, they clear away the rocks below the trap, piling them in it over its floor, until it finally sinks and remains stationary on the cleared spot of sandy bed.  Their task being ended, the three trap setters come to shore, and sprawl on the hot sands to warm their dripping skins, while the sun dries and toasts their backs.