Hog

Bontoc has no record of the time or manner of first acquiring the hog, chicken, or dog.  The people say they had all three when Lumawig came.

Sixty or 70 per cent of the pigs littered in Bontoc are marked lengthwise with alternate stripes of brick-red or yellowish hair, the other hair being black or white; the young of the wild hog is marked the same.  All the pigs, both domestic and wild, outgrow this red or yellow marking at about the age of six months, and when they are a year old become fine-looking black hogs with white marking not unlike the Berkshire of the States.  There is no chance to doubt that the Igorot domestic hog was the wild hog in the surrounding mountains a few generations ago.

The Bontoc hog is bred, born, and raised in a secure pen, yet wild blood is infused direct, since pigs are frequently purchased by Bontoc from surrounding pueblos, most of whose hogs run half wild and intermingle with the wild ones of the mountains.  That the domestic hog in some places in northern Luzon does thus interbreed with the wild ones is a proved fact.  In the Quiangan area I was shown a litter of half-breeds and was told that it was customary for the pueblo sows to breed to the wild boar of the mountains.

The Bontoc hog in many ways is a pampered pet.  He is at all times kept in a pen and fed regularly three times each day with camote vines when in season, with camote parings, and small camotes available, and with green vegetal matter, including pusleys, gathered by the girls and women when there are no camote vines.  All of his food is carefully washed and cooked before it is given to him.

The pigsty consists of a pit in the earth about 4 feet deep, 5 or 6 feet wide, and 8 or 12 feet long.  It is entirely lined with bowlders, and the floor space consists of three sections of about equal size.  One end is two or more feet deeper than the other, and it is into this lower space that the washings of the pen are stored in the rotted straw and weeds, and from which the manure for fertilizer is taken.  The other end is covered over level with the outside earth with timbers, stones, and dirt; it is the pig’s bed and is entered by a doorway in the stone wall.  Most of these “beds” have a low, grass roof about 30 inches high over them.  Underneath the roof is an opening in the earth where the people defecate.  Connecting the “bed” section and the opposite lower section of the sty is an incline on which the stone “feed” troughs are located.

As soon as a pig is weaned he is kept in a separate pen, and one family may have in its charge three or four pens.  The sows are kept mainly for breeding, and there are many several years old.  The richest man in Bontoc owns about thirty hogs, and these are farmed out for feeding and breeding —­ a common practice.  When one is killed it is divided equally between the owner and the feeder.  When a litter of pigs is produced the bunch is divided equally, the sow remaining the property of the owner and counting as one in the division.  Throughout the Island of Luzon it is the practice to leave most male animals uncastrated.  But in Bontoc the boar not intended for breeding is castrated.