In May,
1903, it rained hard every afternoon for two or three hours in Bontoc
pueblo, and at such times the women out of doors uniformly removed
their clothing. They worked in the fields and went from the fields
to their dwellings nude, wearing on their heads while in the trail
either their long, basket rain protector or a head covering of camote
vines, under which reposed their skirts in an effort to keep them
dry. Sometimes while passing our house en route from the field to the
pueblo the women wore the girdle with the camote-vine apron, called
pay-pay. Often no girdle was worn, but the women held a small bunch
of leaves against the body in lieu of an attached apron. Sometimes,
however, their hands were occupied with their burdens, and their
nudity seemed not to trouble them in the least. The women remove their
skirts, they say, because they usually possess only one at a time,
and they prefer to go naked in the rain and while working in the wet
sementeras rather than sit in a wet skirt when they reach home.
Few women in the Bontoc area wear jackets or waists. Those to the
west, toward the Province of Lepanto, frequently wear short ones,
open in front without fastening, and having quarter sleeves.
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