om a foot
to 18 inches wide at the top. The upper surface of the top layer of
stones is quite flat and becomes the path among the sementeras. The
toiler ascends and descends among the terraces on stone steps made
by single rocks projecting from the outside of the wall at regular
intervals and at an angle easy of ascent and descent (see Pl. LIII).

These stone walls are usually weeded perfectly clean at least once
each year, generally at the time the sementera is prepared for
transplanting. This work falls to the women, who commonly perform it
entirely nude. At times a scanty front-and-back apron of leaves is
worn tucked under the girdle.

In the Banawi district, south of the Bontoc area, there are terrace
walls certainly 75 feet in height, though many of these are not stoned,
since the earth is of such a nature that it does not readily crumble.

It is safe to say that nine-tenths of the available water supply of
the dry season in the Bontoc area is utilized for irrigation. In some
areas, as about Bontoc pueblo, there is practically not a gallon of
unused water where there is space for a sementera.

A single area consisting of several thousand acres of mountain side
is frequently devoted to sementeras, and I have yet to behold a more
beautiful view of cultivated land than such an area of Igorot rice
terraces. Winding in and out, following every projection, dipping
into every pocket of the mountain, the walls ramble along like running
things alive. Like giant stairways the terraces lead up and down the
mountain side, and, whether the levels are empty, dirt-colored areas,
fresh, green-carpeted stairs, or patches of ripening, yellow grain,
the beholder is struck with the beauty of the artificial landscape
and marvels at the industry of an otherwise savage people.

Irrigating

By irrigation is meant the purposeful distribution of water over soil
by man by means of diverting streams or by the use of canals in the
shape of ditches or troughs for conveying and directing part of a
water supply, or by means of some other man-directed power to raise
water to the required level.

The Igorot employ three methods of irrigation: One, the simplest and
most natural, is to build sementeras along a small stream which is
turned into the upper sementera and passes from one to another, falling
from terrace to terrace until all water is absorbed, evaporated,
or all available or desired land is irrigated. Usually such streams
are