HARVEST FEAST OF THE KIANGAN IFUGAO. 85 



The granary belongs to Kodamon, one of the richest men in Kiangan 

 and a typical representative of the upper class Ifiigao, the kadaiTfji/an.^^ 

 He is tall, well proportioned, and of middle age. He admires the white 

 man and respects him ; but his tribal pride, together with a most ad- 

 mirable sense of the fit and harmonious, holds him, it has often seemed 

 to me, true to the religion and life of his fathers. He apes neither the 

 white man nor the Christian Filipino. It is as if he preferred to remain 

 (and this in contrast to certain of his fellow kadangyan) a good Ifugao 

 rather than become a "lialf-and-half." He knows, as an Ifugao kadamj- 

 yan ought to know, all his ancestors, male and female, for six or seven • 

 generations, and can trace his genealogy in a direct male line to Bali- 

 tok, the Ifugao ISToah. His two sisters and his wife are nearly of his 

 age. They are vigorous appearing women who ha.ve worked hard in 

 their time, but now have daughters to take their places in the rice fields. 

 Gimbungan, Kodamon's father, is a very old man, almost blind. No 

 one in the region is better versed in the Ifugao folklore and religion than 

 Gimbungan. His faculties, however, are waning. Whenever he starts 

 an invocation, or phase of ceremony, he goes through it like an automaton, 

 and immediately repeats it again and again until Kodamon starts him 

 off on something else, a task performed respectfully and with evident 

 filial love. Kodamon has carried Gimbuiigan'^ a distance of over 3 

 kilometers from Longa to Pindungan, where the feast is to be held ; for 

 the old man is too feeble to walk so far. Eight or nine middle-aged or 

 elderly cousins, and a pig, complete the list of those who take a leading 

 part in the ceremony. 



The younger men " play the parts of acolytes and exhorters ; they 

 strain the rice wine, hold the cup for the old men who are praying, hand 

 them palipal or whatever else may be needed. Not knowing the proper 



" Padre Juan Villaverde applies the term nohility to this class. This Journal, 

 Sec. A (1909), 4, 241. 



'^As this is being written, GimbuiTgan is afflicted with a derangement of the 

 faculties of speech. He has directed Kodamon to find a dog to be killed at a 

 feast; he says that a dog is the proper animal to cure this particular affliction. 

 It may be that he has had a dream to that effect, or it may be that this belief 

 is due to the fact that the dog has more powerful and versatile vocal organs 

 than any other animal known to the Ifugao. Judge the dilemma in which 

 Kodamon finds himself. He would like to obey, it his duty to obey his old 

 father; but for an Ifugao kadangyan to eat dog! It would never be forgotten, 

 and years hence, in the drunken babbling around the ftMfeMd'jar, Kodamon would 

 hear of it! 



" By younger men I mean the younger middle-aged men, for no youths take 

 part in feasts. 



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