Prev | Current Page 140 | Next

Jenks, Albert Ernest, 1869-1953

"The Bontoc Igorot"

As the birds fly
over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib', through the
flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird. The ka-lib' is about 7
feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and
broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end. What the
ka-lib' really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet
long and a long open hand a foot and a quarter wide.

Fishing
The only water available to Bontoc pueblo for fishing purposes is the
river passing between it and her sister pueblo, Samoki. In the dry
season, where it is not dammed, the river is not over six and eight
rods across in its widest places, and is from a few inches to 3 feet
deep. All the water would readily pass, at the ordinary velocity of
the stream, in a channel 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep.
Three methods are employed in fishing in this river -- the first,
catching each fish in the hand; the second, driving the fish upstream
by fright into a receptacle; a third, a combined process of driving
the fish downstream by fright and by water pressure into a receptacle.
The Igorot seems not to have a general word for fish, but he has
names for the three varieties found in the river.


Pages:
128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152