94 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
Some of the Luzon mountaineers perform sacrifices and 
hold the long death watch over the corpse beneath their 
house. If the ground space is not utilized for any of 
these purposes, it is generally because the posts on 
which the house rests are set in water or in soil which is 
periodically covered by the tides. 
The least important parts of the house were its walls. 
Some of the ruder edifices, especially among the 
Negritos, occasionally lack these, the long gabled roof 
taking their place. Generally, rather low walls of thatch, 
bamboo slats, or wooden slabs are added. Windows are 
more frequent at present than in early times. The 
entrance is by a ladder of bamboo; in Cagayan, the 
shin bones of fallen foes were sometimes used as rungs. 
A porch or gallery at the level of the elevated floor 
often runs around the house. This is not customary 
among the mountain tribes even today, but early 
Spanish descriptions show it to be a native device. The 
interior is usually one large room. If compartments 
are present, they can generally be traced to Spanish 
influence. People of high rank, especially women, 
formerly sometimes let down a curtain of mats when 
they retired for the night. 
The entire structure was put together without nails. 
The Filipino did not know this article; probably if he 
had known it, iron would have been too valuable to 
him to employ for a need that could be satisfied by 
lashings of rattan, or at most a little mortising. Where 
storms threatened, houses were often anchored to 
trees or the rope by lines of rattan. 
In detail, there are of course innumerable jaan 
of size, proportions, and materials from the general 
type desea Probably every nationality in the 
islands built a kind of house distinctive enough to be 
recognizable by the expert. But these differences are 

