Old men now and then wear a blanket, pi’-tay, but the younger men never do.  They say a blanket is for the women.

Some few of the principal men in many of the pueblos throughout the area have in late years acquired either the Army blue-woollen shirt, a cotton shirt, or a thin coat, and these they wear during the cold storms of January and February, and on special social occasions.

During the period of preparing the soil for transplanting palay the men frequently wear nothing at the middle except the girdle.  In and out of the pueblo they work, carrying loads of manure from the hogpens to the fields, apparently as little concerned or noticed as though they wore their breechcloths.

All Igorot —­ men, women, and children —­ sleep without breechcloth, skirt, or jacket.  If a woman owns a blanket she uses it as a covering when the nights are cold.  All wear basket-work nightcaps, called “kut’-lao.”  They are made to fit closely on the head, and have a small opening at the top.  They may be worn to keep the hair from snarling, though I was unable to get any reason from the Igorot for their use, save that they were worn by their ancestors.

Woman’s clothing

From infancy to the age of 8 and very often 10 years the little girls are naked; not unfrequently one sees about the pueblo a girl of a dozen years entirely nude.  However, practically all girls from about 5 years, and also all women, have blankets which are worn when it is cold, as almost invariably after sundown, though no pretense is made to cover their nakedness with them.  During the day this pi’-tay, or blanket, is seldom worn except in the dance.  I have never seen women or girls dance without it.  The blankets of the girls are usually small and white with a blue stripe down each side and through the middle; they are called “kud-pas’.”  Those of the women are of four kinds —­ the ti-na’-pi, the fa-yi-ong’, the fan-che’-la, and the pi-nag-pa’-gan.  In Barlig, Agawa, and Tulubin the flayed tree-bark blanket is worn; and in Kambulo, east of Barlig, woven bark-fiber blankets are made which sometimes come to Bontoc.

Before a girl puts on her lu-fid’, or woven bark-fiber skirt, at about 8 or 10 years of age, she at times wears simply the narrow girdle, later worn to hold up the skirt.  The skirt is both short and narrow.  It usually extends from below the navel to near the knees.  It opens on the side, and is frequently so scant and narrow that one leg is exposed as the person walks, the only part of the body covered on that side being under the girdle, or wa’-kis —­ a woven band about 4 inches wide passing twice around the body (see Pl.  XXIII).  The women sometimes wear the braided-string bejuco belt, i-kit’, worn by the men.

The lu-fid’ and the wa’-kis are the extent of woman’s ordinary clothing.  For some months after the mother gives birth to a child she wears an extra wa’-kis wrapped tightly about her, over which the skirt is worn as usual.  During the last few weeks of pregnancy the woman may leave off her skirt entirely, wearing simply her blanket over one shoulder and about her body.  Women wear breechcloths during the three or four days of menstruation.