give them and their people a chance, the only one they have ever had.

We remarked, as we walked about this morning, that although Father
Clapp seemed to know some of the people we met and would speak to them,
they never returned his greeting. None of these highlanders have any
words or custom of salutation. In the Ifugao country, however, they
shake hands, and would frequently smile when on meeting them we would
say, "_Mapud!_"--_i.e._, "Good!"--the nearest thing to a greeting
that our very scanty stock of Ifugao words afforded. But the Igorot
never shook hands with us nor offered to: they have no smile for the
stranger, though they seem good-humored enough among themselves.

Poor as we found the village on the material side, it has nevertheless
some interesting institutional features. For example, it has sixteen
wards, or _atos_, and each _ato_ has its meeting-place, consisting
of a circle of small boulders, where the men assemble to discuss
matters affecting the _ato_, such as war and peace; for the _ato_
is the political unit, and not the village as a whole. A remarkable
thing is the family life, or lack of it rather: as soon as children
are three or four years old, they leave the roof under which they
were born and go to sleep, the boys in a sort of dormitory called
_pabajunan_, occupied as well by the unmarried men, [37] and the girls
in one called _olog_. And, as one may ask whether pearls are costly
because ladies like them or whether ladies like pearls because they
are costly, so here: Is the Igorot house so poor an affair because
of the _olog_, etc., or does the _olog_ exist because the house is
poor? Be this as it may, and to resume, the children go on sleeping
in their respective _pabajunan_ and _olog_ until they are grown up
and married. A sort of trial marriage seems to exist; the young men
freely visit the _olog_--indeed, are expected to. If results follow,