Igorot – Introduction

Three or four days’ journey to the south and east of the Tinguian live the Igorot; but so difficult are the trails over the mountains and through the swift rivers that there is little intercourse between the two tribes, consequently each believes the other a people to be feared. Salt, weapons, and jars are sometimes exchanged, but the customs and beliefs are not similar. Each group leads its own life and is governed by its own spirits.

From a distance an Igorot village looks like a group of haystacks nestling among the hills; but viewed more closely, it is found to consist of houses whose board sides are almost hidden by the overhanging grass roofs. The upper part of the house is used as a storehouse, while below, on a ground floor, the family cooks and eats. In one end there is a tiny boxlike bedroom where the father, mother, and small children sleep. After they are two or three years old the girls spend the night in a dormitory, while the boys sleep in the men’s council house.

These people have splendid terraced fields on the mountain sides where water is brought from the streams through troughs and ditches. Here both men and women are busy early and late cultivating the rice, sweet potatoes, and small vegetables on which they live. The men are head-hunters and ardent warriors, each village demanding a head in payment for any taken by a hostile village.

Watching over the Igorot, controlling the winds and the rains, and providing good crops and health for the people, is the Great Spirit, Lumawig, who lives in the sky. He is believed to have created the Igorot and even to have lived among them on the earth. He no longer visits them in person, they say, but each month they perform a ceremony at which they pray to him to protect them and entreat him to favor them with health and good crops.

The following tales are told by the fathers and mothers to the children to teach them how things came to be as they are.

How the First Head was Taken

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One day the Moon, who was a woman named Kabigat, sat out in the yard making a large copper pot. The copper was still soft and pliable like clay, and the woman squatted on the ground with the heavy pot against her knees while she patted and shaped it. Now while she was working a […]

Lumawig on Earth

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One day when Lumawig, the Great Spirit, looked down from his place in the sky he saw two sisters gathering beans. And he decided to go down to visit them. When he arrived at the place he asked them what they were doing. The younger, whose name was Fukan, answered: “We are gathering beans, but […]

The Creation

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In the beginning there were no people on the earth. Lumawig, the Great Spirit, came down from the sky and cut many reeds.He divided these into pairs which he placed in different parts of the world, and then he said to them, “You must speak.” Immediately the reeds became people, and in each place was […]

The Flood Story

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Once upon a time, when the world was flat and there were no mountains, there lived two brothers, sons of Lumawig, the Great Spirit. The brothers were fond of hunting, and since no mountains had formed there was no good place to catch wild pig and deer, and the older brother said: “Let us cause […]

The Serpent Eagle

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Once there lived two boys whose mother sent them every day to the forest to get wood for her fires. Each morning, as they started out, she gave them some food for their trip, but it was always poor and there was little of it, and she would say: “The wood that you brought yesterday […]

The Tattooed Men

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Once there were two young men, very good friends, who were unhappy because neither of them had been tattooed. They felt that they were not as beautiful as their friends. One day they agreed to tattoo each other. One marked the breast and back of the other, his arms and legs, and even his face. […]

Tilin, The Rice Bird

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One day when a mother was pounding out rice to cook for supper, her little girl ran up to her and cried: “Oh, Mother, give me some of the raw rice to eat.” “No,” said the mother, “it is not good for you to eat until it is cooked. Wait for supper.” But the little […]