If Japan, as has Formosa, had an early Malayan culture,
as will probably be proved in due time, one should not be surprised
to find old rice terraces in the mountains of Batanes Islands and
the Loo Choo Islands which lie between Luzon and Japan.
Building the sementera
It must be noted here that all Bontoc agricultural labors, from the
building of the sementera to the storing of the gathered harvest,
are accompanied by religious ceremonials. They are often elaborate,
and some occupy a week's time. These ceremonials are left out of this
chapter to avoid detail; they appear in the later chapter on religion.
There are two varieties of sementeras -- garden patches, called
"pay-yo'" -- in the Bontoc area, the irrigated and the unirrigated. The
irrigated sementeras grow two crops annually, one of rice by irrigation
during the dry season and the other of camotes, "sweet potatoes," grown
in the rainy season without irrigation. The unirrigated sementera
is of two kinds. One is the mountain or side-hill plat of earth,
in which camotes, millet, beans, maize, etc., are planted, and the
other is the horizontal plat (probably once an irrigated sementera),
usually built with low terraces, sometimes lying in the pueblo among
the houses, from which shoots are taken for transplanting in the
distant sementeras and where camotes are grown for the pigs.
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