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Jenks, Albert Ernest, 1869-1953

"The Bontoc Igorot"

This manner of beckoning is universal in Luzon.
The hand is almost never used to point a direction. Instead, the head
is extended in the direction indicated -- not with a nod, but with
a thrusting forward of the face and a protruding of the open lips;
it is a true lip gesture. I have seen it practically everywhere in
the Islands, among pagans, Mohammedans, and Christians.

PART 8
Religion

Spirit belief
The basis of Igorot religion is every man's belief in the spirit
world -- the animism found widespread among primitive peoples. It is
the belief in the ever-present, ever-watchful a-ni'-to, or spirit
of the dead, who has all power for good or evil, even for life or
death. In this world of spirits the Igorot is born and lives; there
he constantly entreats, seeks to appease, and to cajole; in a mild
way he threatens, and he always tries to avert; and there at last he
surrenders to the more than matchful spirits, whose numbers he joins,
and whose powers he acquires.
All things have an invisible existence as well as a visible, material
one. The Igorot does not explain the existence of earth, water, fire,
vegetation, and animals in invisible form, but man's invisible form,
man's spirit, is his speech.


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