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
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