g a curious contrivance placed over the running
water. Two stakes had been set up, and attached horizontally was a
branch twelve feet long, five or six feet from the ground. A chicken
had been sacrificed here and its blood had been daubed along this pole
in at least eighteen different stains. Feathers had been tied to the
ends of the upright poles and midway between them a curiously whittled
stick of shavings was tied perpendicularly and the giblets and head of
the fowl stuck upon it. Our guide, who was a Christian native from a
small barrio which has some relations with this community, pronounced
this contrivance to be a warning against further approach, in fact a
"dead line." But later, Buliud, one of the important men of Patakgao,
insisted that it was an offering made for the cure of their wounds
received a few days before in a fight with hostile Ilongot.

In the houses of the Ilongot at Bayyait were many curiously whittled
sticks suspended from the rafters. Some of these were of irregular
shape like a ray of lightning; many were bunches of shavings,
singularly suggestive of the prayer sticks of the Ainu.

The language of the Ilongot is predominantly Malayan. It contains a
large bulk of words identical or related to the surrounding Malayan
tongues. There are a few Sanskrit or Indian words, "pagi" (palay,
"paddy," the unhulled rice) and "pana" for arrow, both words widely
diffused in Malaysia. But besides, there is a doubtful element which
does not seem to be Malayan; at least no similar words or roots occur
in any of the other vocabularies of primitive peoples of northern Luzon
collected by me. The Ilongot continually makes use of a short u, which
sometimes becomes the German sound ue as in "buh duek," a flower. These
sounds can not be imitated by the Christian people in contact with
them. This is a condition similar to what we find in Negrito speech,
where, with a preponderance of terms occurring in Malayan languages,
are often a number of totally distinct and usually eccentric words
and sounds.

Finally, it is manifest that the Ilongot are a problem to the
government of the islands. What is to be done with such people as
these? They can not be allowed to continue, as they have done, to
harass and murder the peaceful population of Nueva Ecija, northern
Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya. Some means must be found to restrain
them. Humanity does not permit their extermination. Steps are now
being taken to do something to