Social Organization. Government. The Village 365 



through the openings on to the ground. When the floor is made of 

 wood, it is customary to leave one corner to be finished off in the 

 bamboo slits, and it is here that the mother gives birth to her children. 

 This is not compulsory, but it is custom, and indicates clearly that the 

 planked floor is a recent introduction. 



Entrance to the dwelling is by means of a bamboo ladder which 

 is raised at night, or when the family is away. Windows are merely 

 square holes over which a bamboo mat is fitted at night, but the door 

 is a bamboo-covered framework which turns in wooden sockets. 



Such a house offers no barriers to mosquitoes, flies, flying roaches, 

 or white ants, while rats, scorpions, and centipedes find friendly shelter 

 in the thatch roof. Quite commonly large but harmless snakes are 

 encouraged to take up their residence in the cook room, as their 

 presence induces the rats to move elsewhere. Little house lizards are 

 always present, and not infrequently a large lizard makes its home 

 on the ridge pole, and from time to time gives its weird cry. 



The ground beneath the house is often enclosed with bamboo slats, 

 and is used for storage purposes, or a portion may be used as a chicken 

 coop. It is also customary to bury the dead beneath the dwelling, and 

 above the grave are the boxes in which are placed supplies for the 

 spirits of the deceased. 



With some modification this description of the Tinguian house and 

 village would apply to those of the western Kalinga and the Apayao, 1 

 and likewise the Christian natives of the coast, but a very different 

 type of dwelling and grouping is found among the neighboring 

 Igorot. 2 It is also to be noted that we do not find to-day any trace of 

 tree dwellings, such as were described by La Gironiere 3 at the time 

 of his visit scarcely a century ago. Elevated watch-houses are placed 

 near to the mountain fields, and it is possible that in times of great 

 danger people might have had similar places of refuge in or near to 

 their villages, but the old men emphatically deny that they were ever 

 tree-dwellers, and there is nothing in the folk-tales to justify such a 

 belief ; on the contrary, the tales indicate that the type of dwelling 

 found to-day, was that of former times. 4 



House Furnishings. — The average house has only one room. In- 

 side the door, at the left, one usually finds the stove, three stones 

 sunk in a box of ashes or dirt, or a similar device of clay (Fig 5, 



"For description of these villages, see Cole, Distribution of the Non- 

 Christian Tribes of Northwestern Luzon (Am. Anthropologist, Vol. XI, p. 329). 

 "See Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot (Manila, 1906). 

 s Twenty years in the Philippines, p. 109 (London, 1853). 

 4 See Traditions of the Tinguian, this volume, No. I, p. 8. 



