Do
not come to call away [to kill] any of your relatives or friends.
Nowhere was there visible any sign of fear or awe or wonder. The
women sitting about spun threads on their thighs for making skirts;
they talked and laughed and sang at will. Mothers nursed their babes
in the dwelling and under its projecting roof. Budding girls patted
and loved and dimpled the cheeks of the squirming babes of more
fortunate young women, and there was scarcely a child that passed in
or out of the house, that did not have to steady itself by laying a
hand on the lap of the corpse. All seemed to understand death. One,
they say, does not die until the anito calls -- and then one always
goes into a goodly life which the old men often see and tell about.
In a well-organized and developed modern enterprise the death of
a principal man causes little or no break. This is equally true in
Igorot life. The former is so because of perfected organization --
there are new men trained for all machines; and the latter is true
because of absence of organization -- there is almost no machinery
to be left unattended by the falling of one person.
On the third day the numbers increased. There were twenty-five or
thirty men in the vicinity of the house, on the south side of which
were half a dozen pots of basi,[21] from which men and boys drank
at pleasure, though not half a dozen became intoxicated.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133