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Neither Bontoc nor Samoki is within the zone of bejuco, from which a considerable part of their basket work is made, and, as a consequence, the raw material is bartered for from pueblos one or two days distant. Barlig furnishes most of the bejuco.
The suk'-lang varies in shape from the fez-like ti-no-od' of Bontoc and Samoki, through various hemispherical forms, to the low, flat hats developing eastward and perfected in the last mountains west of the Rio Grande de Cagayan. Barlig makes and wears a carved wooden hat, either hemispherical or slightly oval. It goes in trade to Ambawan.
The field toiler often carries her lunch to the field in the ag-ka-win', and when she returns the basket is usually filled with crustaceans and mollusks picked up in the wet sementera or gathered in the river, or with weeds or grasses to be cooked as "greens." The woman's rain protector, a scoop-shaped affair about 4 feet long, called "tug-wi'," is said to be made only in Ambawan and Barlig.
The relations with two of these pueblos, Barlig and Sadanga, however, are now not peaceful. Bontoc has many kin in Lias, some two days to the east, the trail to which passes Barlig; but communication between these pueblos of kin has ceased, because of the attitude of Barlig.
With few exceptions the breechcloths and blankets worn by Bontoc and Samoki are purchased for money, though it is not very many years since the bark breechcloth made in Titipan and Barlig was worn, and in Tulubin, only two hours distant, Barlig blankets and breechcloths of whole bark are worn to-day.
At Barlig the trail splits, one branch running farther eastward through Lias and Balangao and the other going southward through the Cambulo area a large valley of people said to be similar in culture to those of Quiangan. Another route from Bontoc leaves the main trail at Titipan and joins the pueblos of Tunnolang, Fidelisan, and Agawa in a general southwest direction.
As it is worn on the back, the man appears to be wearing a cape made of hanging vegetable threads. This is the basket commonly known as the "head basket," but it is used for carrying food, blankets, anything, on the trail. It is made in Ambawan, Barlig, and Kanyu, and is found pretty well scattered throughout the area. It is shown, front and back view, in Pl.
Mandicota, a Spanish officer, went from Manila with a battalion of 1,000 soldiers to erase Barlig from the map; he was also accompanied from Bontoc by 800 warriors from that vicinity. The Barlig people fled to the mountains, losing only seven men, whose heads the Bontoc Igorot cut off and brought home.
The present name of Mang-i-lot' is O-lu-wan'; this is the name of a man at Barlig whose head was the first one taken by Mang-i-lot'. A man may change his name each time he takes a head, though it is not customary to do so more than once or twice. Girls as well as boys may receive during childhood two or three names, that they may receive the protection of an anito.
The Spanish comandantes in charge of the province seem to have remained only about two years each. Saldero was the last one. Early in the eighties of the nineteenth century the comandante took his command to Barlig, a day east of Bontoc, to punish that town because it had killed people in Tulubin and Samoki; Barlig all but exterminated the command only three men escaped to tell the tale.
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