About the age of 10 the boys frequently affect a girdle.  These girdles are of four varieties.  The one most common in Bontoc and Samoki is the song-kit-an’, made of braided bark-fiber strings, some six to twelve in number and about 12 feet long.  They are doubled, and so make the girdle about 6 feet in length.  The strings are the twisted inner bark of the same plants that play a large role in the manufacture of the woman’s skirt.  This girdle is usually worn twice around the body, though it is also employed as an apron, passing only once around the body and hanging down over the genitals (see Pl.  XXI).  Another girdle worn much in Tukukan, Kanyu, and Tulubin is called the “i-kit’.”  It is made of six to twelve braided strings of bejuco (see Pl.  LXXX).  It is constructed to fit the waist, has loops at both ends, passes once around the body, and fastens by a cord passing from one loop to the other.  Both the sang-ki-tan’ and the i-kit’ are made by the women.  A third class of girdles is made by the men.  It is called ka’-kot, and is worn and attached quite as is the i-kit’.  It is a twisted rope of bejuco, often an inch in diameter, and is much worn in Mayinit.  A fourth girdle, called “ka’-ching,” is a chain, frequently a dog chain of iron purchased on the coast, oftener a chain manufactured by the men, and consisting of large, open links of commercial brass wire about one-sixth of an inch in diameter.

At about the age of puberty, say at 15, it is usual for the boy to possess a breechcloth, or wa’-nis.  However, the cloth is worn by a large per cent of men in Bontoc and Samoki, not as a breechcloth but tucked under the girdle and hanging in front simply as an apron.  Within the Bontoc area fully 50 per cent of the men wear the breechcloth simply as an apron.

There are several varieties of breechcloths in the area.  The simplest of these is of flayed tree bark.  It is made by women in Barlig, Tulubin, Titipan, Agawa, and other pueblos.  It is made of white and reddish-brown bark, and sometimes the white ones are colored with red ocher.  The white one is called “so’-put” and the red one “ti-nan’-ag.”  Some of the other breechcloths are woven of cotton thread by the women.  Much of this cotton is claimed by the Igorot to be tree cotton which they gather, spin and weave, but much also comes in trade from the Ilokano at the coast.  Some is purchased in the boll and some is purchased after it has been spun and colored.  Many breechcloths are now bought ready made from the Ilokano.

Men generally carry a bag tucked under the girdle, and very often indeed these bags are worn in lieu of the breechcloth aprons —­ the girdle and the bag apron being the only clothing (see Pl.  CXXV and also Frontispiece, where, from left to right, figs. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 wear simply a bag).  One of the bags commonly worn is the fi-chong’, the bladder of the hog; the other, cho’-kao, is a cloth bag some 8 inches wide and 15 inches long.  These cloth bags are woven in most of the pueblos where the cotton breechcloth is made.