e dead man on the pueblo of Kambulo, with chances in
favor of success, but also with equal chances of ultimate loss of
the warrior's head and burial where six kinsmen had preceded him.

PART 7

AEsthetic Life

There is relatively little "color" in the life of the Bontoc
Igorot. In the preceding chapter reference was made to the belief
that this lack of "color," the monotony of everyday life, has to
do with the continuation of head-hunting. The life of the Igorot is
somber-hued indeed as compared with that of his more advanced neighbor,
the Ilokano.

Dress

The Bontoc Igorot is not much given to dress -- under which term are
considered the movable adornments of persons. Little effort is made
by the man toward dressing the head, though before marriage he at
times wears a sprig of flowers or of some green plant tucked in the
hat at either side. The young man's suklang is also generally more
attractive than that of the married man. With its side ornaments of
human-hair tassels, its dog teeth, or mother-of-pearl disks, and its
red and yellow colors, it is often very gay.

About one hundred and fifty men in Bontoc and Samoki own and sometimes
wear at the girdle a large 7-inch disk of mother-of-pearl shell. It is
called "fi-kum'," and its use is purely ornamental. (See Pls. LXXX and
XXX.) It is valued highly, and I have not known half a dozen Igorot to
part with one for any price. This shell ornament is widespread through
the country east and also south of the Bontoc area, but nowhere is it
seen plentifully, except on ceremonial days -- probably not a dozen
are worn daily in Bontoc.

Other forms of adornment, though only a means to a permanent end, are
the ear stretchers and variety of ear plugs which are worn in a slit in
the ear lobe preparing it for the earring -- the sing-sing, which all
hope to possess. The stretcher consists of two short pieces of bamboo
forced apart and so held by two short crosspieces inserted between
them. The bamboo ear stretcher is generally ornamented by straight
incised lines. The plugs are not all considered decorative. Some
are bunches of a vegetable pith (Pl. CXXXVIII), others are wads of
sugar-cane leaves. Some, however, are wooden plugs shaped quite like
an ordinary large cork stopper of a bottle (Pl. CXXXVII). The outer
end is often ornamented by straight incised lines or with red seeds
affixed with wax or with a small piece of a cheap glass mirror roughly
inlaid. The long ea