Ba-long-long, the Igorot boy

Front matter

j

TO MY LITTLE SON

CLIFFORD HUNTLEY JENKS

Contents

CHAPTER

ONE .

PAGE

Chapter One In Which A Baby Sister Is Born

E R Y O N E knows that a crow is wiser than a boy. A crow knows more than most young men, and is even wiser than many old men.

At one time there were no crows, but there was a boy who learned all the things a boy can possibly learn ; and, as he grew to be a young man, he learned everything a young man can know. Then, one day, in a wink, as you shall presently hear, the young man became a crow.

A crow can fly faster than a man can walk, and even faster than any man can run ; and he can see more from high in the air, as he flies, than a man can see even from the top of a tree, or from a very high mountain.

The Igorot people in Bontoc village are always glad to have the crow fly back to their village and warn them of dangers. He flies away toward the east, and there he sees warriors sneaking along a lonely trail toward Bontoc; he flies quickly back to the village, cawing and looking down at the people as he slowly passes over — and they all know some danger is at hand. Once he called and called as he passed over the heads of the people in one corner of the vil¬ lage, and that same night several houses were burned in that part of town.

One day, shortly after dinner, a crow flew cawing over Bontoc from the north. By and by he came back from the south; he had another crow with him, and they both called sharply as they flew slowly over the houses. Just before dark they flew back from the north, but there were three crows this time. They flew so low when they came to the house where the storm-priest lived, and they cawed so loudly, it was as though one of them sat an instant on the old man’s shoulder and screamed in his ear. That night a fierce storm came upon the village.

Then for two long days and nights Lumawig, the great spirit, sent the cold, mist-laden wind from the North-coun¬ try to whip raw the skins of the men and women as they toiled in the rice fields, the men turning the soil, and the women standing knee-deep in the cold mud and water transplanting the rice. In vain, for two days, the old storm-priest petitioned Lumawig to pity the poor toilers, and withdraw his stinging storm.

On the morning of the third day, as little six-year-old Balonglong came from his stone bed on the floor of the sleeping house, and rubbed open his smoke-stuck eyes, he was amazed to see, a short distance away, on the foundation of old stones where Lumawig’ s house once stood, a large fire. Plunging, darting flames fed on the spirits of the coarse reeds as they tried to escape. The spirits in the pine wood hissed and shrieked incessantly, as the red fire-thing tortured them. Around the rocks, and in and out among the flinging tongues of flame, the storm-priest darted, beseechingly calling to Lumawig:

“O, send no more cold! No more fog! No more wind and rain ! O, pity, pity the toilers in the field ! Pity the toiling men and women!”

Balonglong, and all the men and boys who slept in that one sleeping house, stood in the lee of the building, strain¬ ing their eyes down the hill, among the dwellings, to the fire. The men said never but once had a storm continued its fury after the storm-priest built that fire for Lumawig on the stones which were once part of his house. What a terrible, stinging, eating storm they said that other was! It was long ago, even so long that the men then talking were boys. Balonglong heard from the men around him that four people died which Lumawig either did not hear, or would not pity his people.

Soon, hot, steaming rice and sweet potatoes were cooked at the sleeping house, and all gathered for breakfast. Each one squatted on his heels beside the fire, with a small basket or a wooden bowl before him. From the earthen cooking pot each one in turn was helped to a supply of rice — the oldest men first, then the others of the old men’s council, next the middle-aged men, and then the younger ones. Last, the boys received their portions. Among the group three times the rice was divided, each one re¬ ceiving a share until the pot was empty. In the same way the sweet potatoes, yellow and delicious, were distributed from the oldest man to the youngest boy.

While they were eating they were surprised to see a large crow, as black as the bottoms of their cooking pots, helpless on the rocks in the doorway. It had been driven against the stones by the fierce wind, and there it gasped, stretched out its short, black legs, and died.

"The crow came back to the village to die, I see,” said one of the old men, who was a great story-teller. "Very often the crow returns to die, but I never heard of a lizard that did.”

“Tell about the crow and the lizard again,” said one of the older boys, as the old man laid the dead crow near the fire.

The old story-teller smiled his twink¬ ling brown eyes shut, until they were just two more wrinkles among the hun¬ dred laughing ones on his face, and be¬ gan:

"There were two young men who were the best of friends. One of them tattooed the other beautifully. He marked his arms and his legs, his breast and his back, and also his face; he marked him all over. Then he rubbed soot from the bottom of a cooking ket¬ tle into all the marks, so he was tattooed from his head to his feet.

"When the one had finished the tattooing, he said to his friend who was then so beautiful,

“ ‘Now you tattoo me beautifully/ “So the tattooed one scraped together a large pile of black, greasy soot,” con¬ tinued the story-teller, scraping a hand¬ ful of soot from the rice pot by his side. “And, before the other knew what the tattooed one was about, he rubbed soot all over him, from the tips of his fingers to the tips of his fingers on his other hand, and from his hair to his toe nails.” The old man quickly picked up the dead crow, laughing aloud, and rubbed the handful of soot over its feathers.

“Then,” went on the dramatic story¬ teller, “the sooty black one — he was as black all over as the bottom of a pot — said angrily,

“ ‘Why did you tattoo me so badly?* “Without waiting for an answer they began a terrible fight, when, suddenly, the beautifully tattooed one was a large lizard, and he ran away and hid in the tall, thick grass; and the sooty black one was a crow, and he flew away up over the village, because he was ashamed to enter after quarreling with his best friend.”

The men and older boys laughed over the story, with much talking and ges¬ turing, but little Balonglong looked in wonder at the dead crow.

After finishing their rice and sweet potatoes, all hastened outside, but were driven back by the storm, which was now more furious than ever. The voice of the faithful old storm-priest was drowned, and his fire was blinded from view. Few thought of leaving the sleep¬ ing house that morning, except to bring in more wood for the fires. No one, not even the boys whose parents lived near, went home for dinner.

Toward the middle of the afternoon, the screaming voice of the storm-priest was again heard, hoarse and broken, like a faint call from the mountain. And soon it was evident that Lumawig had at last heard him. The storm began to de¬ crease in fury; in an hour it had ceased.

As by magic, the village was alive

Dogs were running and barking, ap¬ parently mystified at the sudden change from the wild fury of the storm and the stricken quiet of the people. Has¬ tily the old men of the councils decided that the morrow would be a rest day, so from the old men in every section of the village, and from every boy’s throat, went up the cry:

“Hui! Rest day! Hui! Rest day!” Lumawig still had pity for his people, and on the morrow, in honor of this fact, no man must work.

It is the custom for all the boys in the village to eat their meals in their parents’ dwelling, but all of them, to¬ gether with the unmarried men, sleep in the council house or sleeping house. The first day of the storm Balonglong had, as usual, accompanied his toiling mother to the fields. The next day he had eaten his meals at home ; on the last morning, as we have seen, he did not venture home, but, like the other boys, ate his breakfast and dinner with the men.

Immediately after the storm, on this third day, he ran home, with a vague longing in his little heart for his mother to stroke his hair; and with an uncon¬ scious desire to pat his father's two big knees. This he often did, standing be¬ tween those giant legs and leaning against his father's breast, while the father and other men sat on their haunches and talked. A

And what do you think he found in the house when he ran in as silently as a shadow ?

There was his mother with a small something held close in her arms. She motioned the halting, half-timid Balonglong to her, put one arm around him and stroked his hair. In her other arm, lying close and held warm . against her, was a new baby, a little sister, to become Balonglong's first real plaything, and his first real care. Born in one of the fiercest storms that ever swept over Bontoc, it was no won¬ der that the baby should receive the name of “Limlim," meaning “the pro¬ longed, fierce storm."

She was a fat, pink baby, and she came into the family bringing no re¬ grets.

“A girl/' said the grandmother.

“Yes, a girl,” said the father. “I am glad she is a girl. When Balonglong was born I was glad he was a boy. If she were a boy I would be glad. I am happy that a baby is born.”

The mother also smiled her satisfac¬ tion. r

Every morning Balonglong watched his mother wash Limlim from head to toe in warm water, and place her in a small blanket of flayed tree bark. She tied the blanket across her breast, leav¬ ing the baby astride her back or hip. On the eighth day a chicken was killed, and a feast held at home in honor of LimlinTs birth.

The Bontoc woman toils daily from the years of her growing girlhood until the weakness of old age or death drops her hands by her sides. But during the first few months after a child is born all the mother's field labors are laid aside.

So Balonglong, who usually spent the day with his mother, remained about the dwelling during the months when other boys and girls were playing “work” among the growing rice and the drip¬ ping chains of water, which trickled from green rice terrace to green rice terrace down the mountain side.

During those months he learned many things. He learned that babies are never

for an instant left to sleep alone; from morning un¬ til night Limlim was se¬ curely fastened in her little blanket, tied close to her watchful mother.

There she hung while the mother was about her daily tasks, pounding out the rice to cook, weeding the sweet potato beds near the house, or feeding the pigs in their walled-up pens. The Igorot baby knows nothing of the rocking cradles,

JSL nothing of the airy swinging which some of the Indian children know so well; it knows nothing of a quiet, rest¬ ful bed. Should Limlim have been laid down alone during her slumber, or, even while awake, an Anito would prob¬ ably have stolen her spirit away, leav¬ ing only the body of the poor little baby behind.

Thus Balonglong learned the most important lesson he could know — learned that some Anito, an invisible spirit from the mountains, is always present to injure or kill an Igorot. He noticed another thing ; he saw that Lim¬ lim was pink or red or yellow, or some other color, he hardly knew what, but he saw clearly that she was not brown like himself and his father and mother.

aWhy is Limlim not like other peo¬ ple ?” he asked his father one day, and then was obliged to explain that she was another color.

“O, she is only a young baby,” the father answered. “Don’t you see that our little pigs out there in the pen have streaks of reddish hair on their sides, among the black, while their old mother is entirely black? The young pigs up in the mountains, the children of the wild hog, also have small reddish streaks on their sides, but in time the red color disappears, and the large hogs are always black, just like ours. Many, many years ago there were no hogs at all, except the wild ones in the moun¬ tains; they were fierce and difficult to kill, so Lumawig taught us how to catch and tame the young ones. That we might never forget Lumawig’s kind¬ ness, our little pigs are always marked like the young wild ones in the moun¬ tains.^

“Were little babies also wild in the mountains a long time ago?” asked Balonglong, with open-eyed surprise. The father and mother smiled at the ques¬ tion, but did not answer — perhaps they did not know. In a few weeks there was no occasion for an answer to Balonglong’s first question, because the sun and “Nature” had worked a won¬ derful change on Limlim so she was in color “like people” — a change wrought slowly every time a child is born of dark-skinned parents, whether they are black or brown or yellow.

Little Limlim proved to be a strong baby, as Balonglong had been, and she lived and thrived. In Bontoc only strong babies live to be men and women, because an Anito is always sure, at some time, to steal away the spirits of weak babies.

Every night at sundown, the mother, with Limlim and Balonglong, went down to the river for a jar of water. Limlim was seated on her mother’s back, and usually Balonglong trudged behind, but several times he sat on his mother’s head with his feet on her shoulders, while with one hand she held his legs and in the other carried the empty jar. At the river were always several women and children. The women were taking baths, or bathing the children, or wash¬ ing baskets of sweet potato parings for the pigs, or filling their water jars, as they laughed and talked. The children played in the water like water dogs after sticks.

Once while the mother was washing little Limlim as she sat on a flat stone rising above the surface of the water, Balonglong attempted to crawl back¬ ward into the empty water jar on the bank close to the water's edge. He be¬ came so absorbed in his play that the jar rolled over with him and plunged into the river. His sudden shrieks startled his mother, who, in her surprise, tipped over the stone on which Limlim was sit¬ ting, and both the little people were splashing in the river. It was a simple matter for the mother to lift out Limlim, and, with her under one arm, to fish Balonglong from the stream, where he was vainly splashing and screaming. Tears could not easily be dried in such an emergency, and the children's catch¬ ing sighs continued until the dripping party reached home. The mother's sis¬ ter, who lived next door, brought up the jar of water, and Balonglong found cer¬ tain solace in riding on his mother's head from the river to the house.

First went the sister, with the two jars of water balanced, one above the other, on her head; then followed the mother, with her burden of children, smiling at the picture of splashing, sputtering Balonglong jammed in the water jar, slowly sinking and floating down the stream; and then came a string of chattering women, carrying water and babies — as always, water and babies — up the trail, from the river to the homes. In the village, several of these neighbors gathered around and joined the mother and her sister in tell¬ ing the men of the incident at the river, until Balonglong began to think it really was a remarkable thing to crawl back¬ ward into a water jar — as a snail crawls backward into its shell, so the old story¬ teller pointed out.

Within three months after Limlim was born, the rice had all been planted, had blossomed, and the fluttering, soarin g bird scarers had everywhere been hung over the ripening grain. It was a sure sign of approaching harvest. Scarcely once in the three months had Balonglong been to the rice fields, but as the time for the first harvest drew near, frequently Limlim was left at home with her father or a relative, while Balonglong went with his mother to their various mountain-side fields to see when the harvest must be made.

One night a heavy rainstorm flooded the fields, and tore down the terrace walls, so that nearly every grown per¬ son in the village turned out the next day to repair the damage. Balonglong swelled with pride when his mother told him, in the early morning, he could care for Limlim at home, while the others went into the fields.

The two children, Limlim tied on Balonglong’s back, began the morning with great sympathy and joy. They had been close companions since the baby's birth, and had become very well ac¬ quainted ; Limlim was Balonglong's plaything, and Balonglong was Limlim's entertainer. Early in the day, however, the burden on the little fel¬ low's back grew heavier and heavier, yet he would not for his life have laid the baby down, for fear of the Anito which might steal her spirit away. It had always been delightful for both the children when Balonglong could fondle his baby sister while tied on her moth¬ er's back or held in her father's arms, but now the fatigue of their cramped positions, the feeling of responsibility which Balonglong had, and the hunger of Limlim, grew too much for them to bear alone.

In vain the little fellow teetered from one foot to the other, swung far from side to side, sat down, and stood up. In vain were all his childish efforts to check Limlim’s cry of hunger and fatigue. By and by a neighbor came to the rescue, and soon succeeded in comforting the baby. But before she was quieted, Ba¬ longlong, tired out, fell asleep, curled up on the earth by the doorway.

That was Balonglong's first trying experience with Limlim as a care ; it was the hardest day of all his short life, but it was only the first of many similar days which followed, during the busy rice harvest.

Chapter Two In Which Is Shown Balonglong's

WORLD

N TEN weeks the har¬ vest was over in Bontoc. Bunches of rice were drying on the grass roof of almost every house ; around every granary the ground was covered with rice, each hour getting yellower and dryer. Soon it would be stored in the granary away from the rats and the mice.

Balonglong, with Limlim tied on his back, had to watch the rice drying on the ground about his father's granary, so the chickens could not eat it. One day, while the children were playing “sugar cane," each sucking the other's finger, Limlim bit so hard that Balong¬ long squealed, “Ouch!" Limlim, in her s surprise, opened her mouth, and Ba¬ longlong saw two small, white stones inside. They seemed to be going right in, as an earth worm backs down a hole, out of sight, into the ground. Surely an Anito had put the stones into her mouth! Away Balonglong ran for home, frightened Limlim bouncing on his back as they went.

At last he ran into his mother’s arms, who soon discovered that the baby had her first two teeth. Then Balonglong understood, and he felt of his own teeth in great pride ; when, suddenly, an Ani¬ to or something, scampered up his back — just as every boy sometimes feels something creep or scamper up his back — and there, before his two bulging eyes, Balonglong saw, between his thumb and finger, one of his own teeth. His wise mother saw his fright, and quickly said,

“Why, Balonglong, how you have grown! Very soon, I shall have only his first teeth — his wild teeth — have come out, and he has new tame ones, which are larger and very much better.”

Balonglong must have been about six and a half years old, and Limlim was six months. Igorot people do not keep a record of the ages of their children, but Igorot “wild” teeth, just the same as the first teeth of white children, know when to come, and when to go.

A fat, bronze-colored chunk of a boy, with dark brown eyes ; with a broad, lit¬ tle bump on his face for a nose; with dark hair down his back, faded reddish brown on top, and banged across the forehead; wearing no other clothing than his own brown skin and a slender woven cord around his very plump waist; romping and playing almost noiselessly with a dozen other bronze¬ skinned little boys ; vanishing as quickly and silently as a week-old partridge whenever a stranger came suddenly on him, or, with the wisdom of the young partridge, hiding his head and body be¬ hind a convenient granary, unconscious that his feet and ankles were in plain view below its raised floor — this was Balonglong, the Igorot boy, in his vil¬ lage of Bontoc.

Limlim was just a brown baby girl. She wore no clothing except the blanket in which she was usually tied. Her face was almost always dirty, and her short hair had never been brushed. But her brown eyes were beautiful, and she was usually happy and smiling, whether in her father’s arms at the council house, or sitting astride her mother’s hip, or tied on Balonglong’s back, as he wan¬ dered about the village.

Balonglong’s father, Somowan, was broad and strong and silent. He was known in the other villages as a brave man, and no enemy dared attack him alone. In the men’s councils his words were few and wise. He was a success¬ ful hunter, and each year killed several wild hogs in the mountains; sometimes he killed a deer. He was very expert in hunting the fierce, wild water-buffalo, called the carabao. He usually led the hunting party which, now and then, killed a carabao to celebrate some rich man's wedding. He had many fields of rice and sweet potatoes. He had at least a dozen hogs, and fully twenty tame carabaos which pastured on the sides of the mountain. Each carabao had a double slit in the end of its left ear — which all people knew showed that it belonged to Somowan. The people of the village said he was a rich man.

On the back of his head Somowan wore, like all the other men, a small basket-work hat, which was really a pocket. This pocket hat was held on by a cord of braided hair passing across the forehead. In the hat he tucked up his long, black hair, and usually, too, he stuck his straight

tobacco pipe under — i »—i

its edge. His hair

was banged in front like Balonglong's. Blue-black tattoo lines were on both sides of his face, following the jaw bone, even across his chin. Quite like a pair of open wings, blue-black lines were tattooed on both breasts, opening and spreading out, even as far as on both his upper arms. A flying bird — it looked like a crow — was tattooed small on his right thigh.

Around his waist he wore a breechcloth, which hung down toward his knees. Tucked beneath the girdle of the breechcloth there hung before him a deer-bladder bag, making a large pocket. So tough and strong were the bottoms of his feet, that the sharp stones of the mountain trails seldom hurt him. No Igorot ever dreamed of wearing shoes; and then, besides, a bare foot does not slip half so often on the moun¬ tains as does a shoe.

One seldom saw Balonglong’s father without his spear and his head-ax. The ax was tucked beneath his breechcloth girdle. While he was working in the fields he had his spear sticking point up in the ground near at hand, and his war shield leaning against it, ready for any enemy who might pounce on the toilers.

If you wanted to know Balonglong’s father from all the other men in Bontoc, you would look for a long, raised scar on his forehead, and notice the peculiar, gold earring he wore. This earring was several generations old, and no one knew where or how it was made.

Even more silent than the father was Lanoko, Balonglong’s mother, and she, too, was bronze-colored and strong. She could toil as much in the fields as the father, and each year she planted and gathered more sweet potatoes than al¬ most any other woman in Bontoc. Her neighbor women frequently sat with her in the broad band of cooling shade beneath the house roof, gossiping and laughing, while she wove and smiled.

Balonglong’s mother was rarely ever idle. If she had a water jar, she was carrying it empty to the river, or bring¬ ing it home on her head filled for cook¬ ing. If you saw her with an empty carrying basket, you might know she would return from the fields with it filled with food to eat. When she spent all day in the field, she carried her din¬ ner of cold rice in a peculiar little bas¬ ket tied around her waist and hanging at her back; at night, if one peeped in the basket, he would find many fat snails, which the mother had gathered in the mud of the rice fields. When cooked, these snails were considered a great delicacy.

Like other women, Lanoko wore a skirt of woven tree bark, extending from her waist to her knees, and around her waist she fastened a woven girdle to hold the skirt. She coiled her long hair in many rope-like strings, and wound them around her head, fastening them by a double cord of red agate beads, and a beautiful string of pointed dog teeth, showing white as sunlight against her night-black hair. On the backs of her hands fine blue-black lines were tattooed criss-cross, back and forth, over one another. From her wrists toward her shoulders her arms were entirely surrounded with tattooed lines, straight ones and wavy ones, crossed over one another, and filled in close with dots and squares and circles.

Probably you would most readily know Balonglong’s mother from all the other women, if you saw her when she danced at the feast. Then she always wore more strings of agate beads on her hair than any other woman, and she wore two gold earrings in her ears, and another one hung on her neck. From mother to daughter, generation after generation, agate beads and earrings were handed down; and at feasts the women usually wore all they had. But gossip said Lanoko had more beads than she could wear, and no other woman owned three gold earrings.

From a short distance you might think Balonglong’s house was a peaked stack of hay; or you might, perhaps, think it was the house of a giant musk¬ rat, the muskrat which some Indians say built our beautiful world of grassgreen meadows and lily-covered, skyblue ponds. But when you came close you would see that it was neither a muskrat’s house nOr a stack of hay. It was a peculiar kind of house with a roof made of long, dry grass tied over a frame of poles, a frame something like the ribs of a large umbrella. The grass was put on so thick and close that the rains never wet through it.

Balonglong could stand on the ground to stoop under it when they went in and out of the door, yet the roof ran up so high that Balonglong had never been able to throw but two stones over it.

The sides of the house were of large pine boards, and many short pine logs were piled close against them under the low, projecting roof, so they would be dry and ready for fire wood. It was on these logs that the women used to come and sit in the shade with Balonglong’s mother.

The house was built close to the ground, and its only floor was the earth. Inside the door, at your left hand, was the wooden mortar, in which the mother each day pounded out from the fruit heads their white rice to cook. Beyond it, on a shelf, were several jars of water, and on the ground were three fireplaces made with rocks so set that three earthen pots or kettles could be put on them over the small, red-hot fires. If you should go to the house any night just as it was getting dark, you would see the mother there, cooking rice and sweet potatoes, or beans, in the pots for supper. But you would have to look sharp, for the Igorot house has no lamps ; the cooking fires give some light, and sometimes the housewife lights her work by burning a pitch-pine knot on a flat stone beside her.