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Jenks, Albert Ernest, 1869-1953

"The Bontoc Igorot"

When we make a feast and ask you to
come to it, we want you to do so; but if another anito kills all your
relatives, there will be no more houses for you to enter for feasts.
This last argument is considered to be a very important one, as all
Igorot are fond of feasting, and it is assumed that the anito has
the same desire.
The night following the burial all relatives stay at the house lately
occupied by the corpse.
On the day after the burial all the men relatives go to the river
and catch fish, the small kacho. The relatives have a fish feast,
called "ab-a-fon'," at the hour of the evening meal. To this feast
all ancestral anito are invited.
All relatives again spend the night at the house, from which they
return to their own dwellings after breakfast of the second day and
each goes laden with a plate of cooked rice.
In this way from two to eight days are given to the funeral rite,
the duration being greater with the wealthier people.
Only heads of families are buried in the large pine coffins, which
are kept ready stored beside the granaries everywhere about the
pueblo. As in the case of Som-kad', all old, rich men are buried in a
plat of ground close to the last fringe of dwellings on the west of
the pueblo, but all other persons except those who lose their heads
are buried close to their dwellings in the camote sementeras.


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