d _olog_. And, as one may ask whether pearls are costly
because ladies like them or whether ladies like pearls because they
are costly, so here: Is the Igorot house so poor an affair because
of the _olog_, etc., or does the _olog_ exist because the house is
poor? Be this as it may, and to resume, the children go on sleeping
in their respective _pabajunan_ and _olog_ until they are grown up
and married. A sort of trial marriage seems to exist; the young men
freely visit the _olog_--indeed, are expected to. If results follow,
it is a marriage, and the couple go to housekeeping; otherwise all the
parties in interest are free. Marriage ties are respected, adultery
being punished with death; but a man may have more than one wife,
though usually that number is not exceeded. However, a man was pointed
out to us, who maintains in his desire for issue, but without avail,
a regular harem, having no fewer than fifteen wives in different
villages, he being a rich man.

Among other things shown us by Father Clapp was a circle of highly
polished boulders, said traditionally to be the foundation of the house
of Lumawig, the Deity of the Bontok. One stone was pierced by a round
hole, made by Lumawig's spear: on arriving, he decided he would remain
permanently in Bontok, and began by sticking the shaft of his spear
in the stone in question--a very minor example, by the way, of his
magical powers. More interesting, perhaps, than the ruins of Lumawig's
house was a sacred grove on a hill rising just back of the village,
in which, according to Father Clapp, certain rites and ceremonies
are held once a year. The matter is one for experts, but it appears
strange that this people should have a sacred grove, as being unusual.

We wound up our stay in Bontok by going to a grand dinner in Government
House, given by Pack. [38]

CHAPTER XX

We push on north.--Banana skirts.--Albino child.--Pine
uplands.-- Glorious view.

Our two days' stay had greatly refreshed our horses and ponies, and
they needed it, not only because of the work already done, but because
of the effort we were going to ask of them during the next forty-eight
hours, when the sum total of our ascents was to be 18,000 feet, and
of descents the same, and the distance to be travelled seventy miles.

We continued our journey on the 10th, leaving Van Schaick behind,
and also Cootes, both of whom had been taken ill, not seriously,
but enough to make it safer to fal