﻿ix. d, 6 Robertson: The Igorots of Lepanto 487 



dalipey (tribunal), where the young men over 8 years of age and 

 the widowers sleep. Boys and girls old enough to wed do not sleep in 

 their parents' home; the young women seek the houses of widows or 

 women that are not living with a man and sleep in their houses as long 

 as they are not married; the children sleep in the house of their parents." 



A young man that has been sleeping for some time in the dalipey 

 that wants to get married and has already found a girl that will have 

 him, gets two or three old men to go to make a marriage agreement 

 with the parents of the girl; the only point which they have to settle 

 is the sabong (dowry) 54 that the man is to give to the bride. If the 

 sabong is satisfactory to the girl's parents then they kill a rooster and 

 a hen and get some tapuy. If the gall of the chickens proves unsatisfactory, 

 they kill two others and so on until they find two whose galls are 

 satisfactory; the expense for this is borne by both parties. 



The old men commissioned by the bridegroom also send after his father, 

 but not until after the agreement about the dowry has been settled; 

 and these old men are considered as the witnesses to the marriage; the 

 girl's parents send after the young man to live with their daughter after- 

 three days have passed, although this time can be extended to one or 

 two years. The husband and wife can be divorced at any time they 

 wish, without anybody being able to prevent them from doing so. A 

 divorce is sought for the following reason: If they have no children, 

 despite the continued observance of the pasang (a prayer to the anito 

 to give them children). If the husband is the one that first suggests 

 a separation, the dowry given by him to his wife will be left to her, 

 but if the woman first suggests the separation the dowry will go back 

 to the husband, but what property they have accumulated during the 

 time that they have been married will be shared equally between them. 

 The divorced parties must not have any hard feelings toward each other 

 during their lifetime. 



ANOTHER CUSTOM OF MARRYING 



The parents of both the boy and girl have a talk with each other 

 and make an agreement to marry their children; the boy's parents turn 

 over to the girl's parents the dowry agreed upon, which remains in their 

 possession; if rice land, they work it until the children get old enough 

 to marry; the profits therefrom are used for the maintenance of the girl; 

 when the children are grown up and then refuse to marry each other, 

 the dowry is returned to the boy's parents. 



carrying frames; pouches worn by men and women; storage baskets; 

 hats; baskets for carrying eggs, ore, and fish; and fish traps. These are 

 made almost entirely of rattan and bamboo." Cf. also Jenks, Pub. P. I. 

 Ethnol. Surv. (1905), 1, 121-123. 



" Dalipey, see footnote 17. Beyer says that the sleeping customs of 

 the Lepanto Igorots are the same as among the Ifugaos and that there 

 is no public sleeping house for girls as in Bontoc. But see page 493, 

 where a communal house for girls is described. This may have been bor- 

 rowed from the Bontocs. 



86 See footnotes 14 and 35. The dowry, which was always given by 

 the man, was an important condition of marriage throughout the 

 Philippines. 



