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The explanation of the obscurity of Chakong in the minds of the Igorot seems to be that the a'-to ceremonial is more important than the a'-to council that the emotional and not the mental is held uppermost, that the people of Bontoc flow together through feeling better than they drive together through cold force or control.
Several of the old men of Bontoc have seen this rock, now broken by others fallen on it from above, but the stream of water still flows on the thirsty mountain. In an isolated garden, called "fil-lang'," now in ato Chakong, Lu-ma'-wig taught Bontoc how best to plant, cultivate, and garner her various agricultural products. Fil-lang' to-day is a unique little sementera.
Then the old men of Chakong counciled together; they came to the conclusion that it was bad for the a'-to to have a pa-ba-fu'-nan, and none has ever been built. This absence of the pa-ba-fu'-nan in some way detracts from the importance of the a'-to in the minds of the people.
The first list of a'-to written did not include Chakong; it was discovered only when the pueblo was platted, and at that time my informants sought to pass it over by saying "It is Chakong, but it has no pa-ba-fu'-nan."
The pa-ba-fu'-nan is the man's club by day, and the unmarried man's dormitory by night, and, as such, it is the social center for all men of the a'-to, and it harbors at night all men visiting from other pueblos. Each a'-to, except Chakong, has a pa-ba-fu'-nan. When the men of Chakong were building theirs they met the pueblo of Sadanga in combat, and one of the builders lost his head to Sadanga.
The a'-to ceremonials of Chakong are held in the pa-ba-fu'-nan of neighboring a'-to, as in Sigichan, Pudpudchog, or Filig, and this seems partially to destroy the ESPRIT DE CORPS of the unfortunate a'-to. Each a'-to has a fa'-wi building a structure greatly resembling to the pa-ba-fu'-nan, and impossible to be distinguished from it by one looking at the structure from the outside.
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