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The Philippine Journal of Science 



1914 



color. He was much surprised at that and told it immediately to his 

 companion. The latter, on seeing the hands of the former, was also sur- 

 prised, and they both stood looking at it for some moments. After exam- 

 ining and studying it, they went home to get some wooden vessels. They 

 returned to the abovesaid sitio, and gathered a big lump of unit. They 

 performed the dayas, by which the saffron-colored substance is separated 

 from the earth and sand. When the latter was separated from the former, 

 the discoverers saw that the saffron-colored substance consisted of very 

 small particles of dust, which when shaken in the abovesaid wooden vessels 

 glittered brightly in the sun. One of the men continued to shake the par- 

 ticles in the wooden vessel for the purpose of studying them carefully, 

 while the other was sitting beside a small fire warming himself. After 

 some minutes of talk, they agreed to try to melt them in the fire. This 

 they really did by placing a certain quantity of those particles in a bit of 

 broken jar, which they set among the live coals. After a few hours they 

 obtained the result they desired. On becoming cool, they had a substance 

 with the abovesaid color. But it was mixed with other substances, which 

 were probably impurities from the coal which was used to melt the particles, 

 and which had united with the abovesaid particles at the moment of melt- 

 ing. That abovesaid substance they called bulauan or dadaan, according to 

 the condition in which it was found in the soil and subsoil when it was 

 obtained and corresponding to its color. They continued to experiment in 

 order to ascertain its uses. After a few days had passed, the abovesaid 

 agreed to convert it into a kind of earrings which they called dinanpulay. 

 At the present time only the wealthy people wear them, because of their 

 excessive value, because of the difficulty in finding them, and because of 

 the great cost of manufacture. Those discoverers continued their under- 

 taking and succeeded in making a number of earrings, which they took to 

 other rancherias to sell, as well as some pieces to Tagudin (Ilocos Sur). 

 There the purchasers had the material tested by experts before buying it. 

 As a consequence, it obtained the name of balitoc. 1M From those times we 

 have continued to work that enterprise without cessation in spite of the 

 difficulty and costliness of the work, and in fact in the way in which it 

 was done in those days. 



SABANGAN 107 



The township of Sabangan has 6 barrios, as follows : Bonayan, 

 Goyan, Ilagan, Pingad, Namatec, and Sabangan (native name, 

 Bait) . Its total population is 2,232, of whom 37 are Christians 



Smith [Journ. Geol. (1913), 21, 59, 60] thinks that at least 1,000 pesos 

 per month are panned by the people of the Philippines. A manuscript 

 conserved in the Philippine Library is entitled Noticia de los Ygorrotes, 

 de sus pueblos, gentio, y minas de oro y de varias tentativas para su des- 

 cubrimiento. Although undated, this manuscript is of the nineteenth 

 century. It is a compiled account of Spanish contact with the Igorots 

 and is accompanied by a map. 



104 Balitoc, the Ilocano word for gold. 



107 For a description of Sabangan, or Sabangan, as it is sometimes 

 written, see Perez, Igorrotes, 195-201. It is located 27 kilometers east of 

 Cervantes. 



