The Bontoc Igorot by Albert Ernest Jenks
page 59 of 483 (12%)
page 59 of 483 (12%)
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where she now is -- but they say that some of the a'-to are newer than
others. In fact, they divide them into the old and new. The newer ones are Bu-yay'-yeng, Am-ka'-wa, Po-lup-o', Cha-kong', and Po-ki'-san; all these are border a'-to of the pueblo. The generations of descendants of men who did distinct things are kept carefully in memory; and from the list of descendants of the builders of some of the newer a'-to it seems probable that Cha-kong' was the last one built. One of the builders was Sal-lu-yud'; he had a son named Tam-bul', and Tam-bul' was the father of a man in Bontoc now some twenty-five years old. It is probable that Cha-kong' was built about 1830 -- in the neighborhood of seventy-five years ago. The plat of the pueblo seems to strengthen the impression that Cha-kong' is the newest a'-to, since it appears to have been built in territory previously used for rice granaries; it is all but surrounded by such ground now. One of the builders of Bu-yay'-yeng, an a'-to adjoining Cha-kong', and also one of the newer ones, was Ba-la-ge'. Ba-la-ge' was the great-great-great-grandfather of Mud-do', who is a middle-aged man now in Bontoc. The generations of fathers descending from Ba-la-ge' to Mud-do' are the following: Bang-eg', Cag-i'-yu, Bit-e', and Ag-kus'. It seems from this evidence that the a'-to Bu-yay'-yeng was built about one hundred and fifty years ago. These facts suggest a much greater age for the older a'-to of the pueblo. An a'-to has three classes of buildings occupied by the people -- the fawi and pabafunan, public structures for boys and men, and the olag for girls and young women before their permanent marriage; and the dwellings occupied by families and by widows, which are called |
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