82 BARTON. 



is not very expensive; it can be given for from fifteen to twenty pesos; 

 it is not pretentious, for every one who has a few rice fields gives it ; but 

 it is of the greatest importance.- When the meaning of rice to the Ifu- 

 gao is considered, it is not strange that harvest time should be celebrated 

 by feasts having profound religious importance. A bad rice crop indi- 

 cates that the spirits have a "bad mind" toward the village and special 

 effort must be made to appease them to the end that further disasters 

 may be averted. A good rice crop is an occasion for a thank offering, 

 and for a feast to keep the spirits right during the coming year. . 



Every man who owns a granaij, alang, must give a ceremonial feast, 

 haki} If his granaries are located in different places, the man must 

 give a feast at each. These have a fourfold function: First, to thank 

 the deities, iagol, for the crop of the past year if it has been good, or 

 to reprove them gently and arg-ue the case with them if it has been a 

 bad one ; second, to persuade the deities to increase the rice as it is being 

 cut and stored in the granary; third, to induce them not to decrease the 

 rice nor to destroy it during the year, as, for example, by strong winds 

 that can break granaries, or by lightning; and fourth, to put the deities 

 in a "good mind," that they may favor the general welfare of the village 

 during the year to come, that they may make sickness rare, prevent de- 

 structive storms, defeat enemies should enemies come, frustrate the 

 designs of sorcerers in other villages, and make women, pigs, and chickens 

 fertile. 



The second function of the harvest feast, to persuade the deities to 

 increase the rice as it is being cut and stored, is especially interesting. 

 The idea seems absurd, but it must be considered that these people have 

 no experience contrary to this belief; for, even if they count the mano- 

 jos * of rice, hutek, when they put them in the granary,^ they do not 

 keep track of the number taken from the granary for daily use. The 

 Igorots of Lepanto also believe that the divinities may increase the rice 

 as it is being cut and stored away. But the most intelligent Ifugaos 

 deny the belief in this form. They believe that the divinities may make 



' In this paper the writer desires to be understood as speaking of the Ifugaos 

 who live in the village of Kiangan. The customs and practices of the various 

 divisions of the Ifugao tribe vary somewhat and this article would be inaccurate 

 did it pretend to apply to the Ifugaos as a whole. 



' Baki is the general term for a religious feast. All feasts of the Ifugaos 

 have some religious significance. 



' Small hand sheaves of headed rice. From the Spanish manojo, a bundle of 

 herbs or other plants that can be held in the hand. 



' Counting the manojos is, except in the case of a field that is let to a renter, 

 tabooed on the ground that the iagol will not miraeulously increase the manojos 

 if they be counted. There is, among some card plaj'ers, the vague remnant of 

 a belief that if a hand be not picked up until the deal is finished, the cards 

 will grow to higher denominations. 



