THE IFUGAOS OF QUINGAN AND VICINITY. 253 



great feasts and ceremonies for the crowning of the brave, killing and 

 eating the best that they have or can borrow, offering all of this, to- 

 gether with the dances and the great drunkenness, to the sonl of the 

 murdered person, whose head, placed on the point of a pike, is the 

 principal trophy and the central point of the shameless orgy. For this 

 reason, even the relatives of the deceased person, who seek an inexorable 

 vengeance, seem to respect these ferocious feasts, not exacting their due 

 until the feasts have ceased. 



Fourth, before beginning the rice harvest, when they do the same 

 as at the beginning of their labors in the fields. 



Fifth, when the rice has been harvested and put into the granaries, 

 in which case, on account of the satisfaction they find in entering upon 

 a period of rest, and in order to obtain from their gods the preserva- 

 tion, and even the increase of what they have harvested, they leap and 

 dance, eat and drink, which is a pleasure for them and a horror and 

 alarm for anyone who is looking on. 



Sixth, and last; in a sort of Lent, which they observe in honor of 

 the god Baco, at which time their eating and their drunkenness reaches 

 the highest grade, causing the origin of innumerable enmities, many 

 deaths, and a thousand misfortunes, which occur for the most part be- 

 tween relatives and friends. 



In all that I have narrated, I refer to the Ifugaos in the mountains. 

 Those of the mission of Ibung, situated in the plain, do not do so mucli 

 as the shadow of what the others do. They are gradually becoming 

 accustomed to live submissively after the fashion of the Christians. 



DIVINATIONS AND IDLIS OliSERVANCES OF THE IFUGAOS. 



In order to free themselves from the fears which beset them, they 

 have a book which every Ifugao knows how to read. If at the first, 

 second, or third reading, it does not appease the anger of their divin- 

 ities they read it a fourth, fiftli, or even more times, but it should be 

 noted that each time it is read costs money, often equal to the value 

 of a carabao or of an Ifugao soul; this book, and this reading, are the 

 entrails of every fowl or animal that is eaten and the observation of 

 the same. Their auguries are reduced ordinarily to the observation of 

 the state of the gall of the animal which they kill. If it appears to 

 them that the gall indicates good or fortunate results in the enterprises 

 which they are about to undertake, they do not kill more fowls or hogs. 

 But if the business turns out badly they repeat the killing of animals 

 until they attain their end, although at the cost of their interests; for 

 the fowls and the hogs which they are wont to borrow they have to pay 

 their weight in gold according to the fearfully usurious rates whicli 

 prevail among them. 



Who can calculate the numl)erless times and occasions on which they 



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