FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
ily cared for by some family which uses the property at the time and falls heir to it when the owner dies. There are a very few blind persons who have neither relatives nor property, and these are cared for by families which offer assistance, and two of these old blind men beg rice from dwelling to dwelling. Sickness, disease, and remedies All disease, sickness, or ailment, however serious or slight, among the Bontoc Igorot is caused by an a-ni'-to. If smallpox kills half a dozen persons in one day, the fell work is that of an a-ni'-to; if a man receives a stone bruise on the trail an a-ni'-to is in the foot and must be removed before recovery is possible. There is one exception to the above sweeping charge against the a-ni'-to -- the Igorot says that toothache is caused by a small worm twisting and turning in the tooth. Igorot society contains no person who is so malevolent as to cause another sickness, insanity, or death. So charitable is the Igorot's view of his fellows that when, a few years ago, two Bontoc men died of poison administered by another town, the verdict was that the administering hands were directed by some vengeful or diabolical a-ni'-to. As a people the Bontoc Igorot are healthful. It is seldom that an epidemic reaches them; bubonic plague and leprosy are unknown to them. By far the majority of deaths among them is due to what the Igorot calls fever -- as they say, "im-po'-os nan a'-wak," or "heat of the body" -- but they class as "fever" half a dozen serious diseases, some almost always fatal. The men at times suffer with malaria. They go to the low west coast as cargadors or as primitive merchants, and they return to their mountain country enervated by the heat, their systems filled with impure water, and their blood teeming with mosquito-planted malaria. They get down with fever, lose their appetite, neither know the value of nor have the medicines of civilization, their minds are often poisoned with the superstitious belief that they will die -- and they do die in from three days to two months. In February, 1903, three cargadors died within two weeks after returning from the coast. Measles, chicken pox, typhus and typhoid fevers, and a disease resulting from eating new rice are undifferentiated by the Igorot -- they are his "fever." Measles and chicken pox are generally fatal to children. Igorot pueblos promptly and effectually quarantine against these diseases. When a settlement
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Igorot

 

Bontoc

 

disease

 

malaria

 
diseases
 

sickness

 

caused

 

cargadors

 

Measles

 

persons


property

 

chicken

 

dwelling

 
deaths
 
primitive
 
country
 

enervated

 

systems

 

mountain

 

majority


return

 

merchants

 

filled

 
suffer
 

typhus

 

typhoid

 
fevers
 
resulting
 

returning

 
February

eating
 

effectually

 
quarantine
 

settlement

 
promptly
 

pueblos

 

undifferentiated

 
generally
 

children

 

months


appetite

 
planted
 

teeming

 

mosquito

 
medicines
 

belief

 

superstitious

 

poisoned

 
civilization
 

impure