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During the time of our stay in Abra, the villages of the Buklok valley were on bad terms with the people of the neighboring Ikmin valley, and were openly hostile to the Igorot on the eastern side of the mountain range. Manabo and Abang were likewise hostile to their Igorot neighbors, and the latter village was surrounded with a double bamboo stockade, to guard against a surprise attack.
Visit to Manabo Conversation with my Guide Religion of the Tinguians Their Marriage Ceremony Funereal Rites Mode of Warfare I take leave of the Tinguians Journey to the Igorrots Description of them Their Dwellings A Fortunate Escape Alila and the Bandits Recollections of Home A Majestic Fig-tree Superstition of Alila Interview with an Igorrot The Human Hand Nocturnal Adventure Consternation of Alila Probable Origin of the Tinguians and Igorrots.
One day when the people were preparing to go and fight against Manabo, they went to the pináing, and while they danced a red rooster with long tail feathers came out of the stones and walked around them. When they stopped dancing, he went again into the stones. Since that time a white cock has sometimes appeared and once a white dog came out while the people danced.
In Manabo, a town influenced both by the Igorot of the Upit River valley and the Christianized Ilocano of San Jose, the spirit is said to go at once to the great spirit Kadaklan, and then to continue on "to the town where it lives." "It is like a person, but is so light that it can be carried along by the wind when it blows."
At least twenty varieties of bananas are raised in Abra. The fruit of some of these is scarcely larger than the forefinger, while others are quite large. The common type bears a rather small, yellow fruit locally known as saba. In Manabo and several other villages, plantings covering three or four acres are to be found, but the usual plot is small, and is situated near to the house of the owner.
This spirit gave the Tinguian rice and sugar-cane, taught them how to plant and reap, how to foil the designs of ill-disposed spirits, the words of the diams and the details of many ceremonies. Further to bind himself to the people, it is said, he married "in the first times" a woman from Manabo.
In Manabo a piece of banana bark is taken from one of the plantings beside a bawi; and, after being washed in the water, is applied to the affected limb. The final act is to take a coconut husk, stick feathers in its sides, and hang it beside the bawi as a sign to all that the ceremony has been held. No spirits are summoned at this time, neither is there singing or dancing. Bakid.
Should the sun fail to appear, all remain quietly in the village until the lakay can remove the taboo by his wood gathering. In Manabo the ceremony is a mixture of the two types just described, and is always held at the time of planting and when droughts occur.
Manabo at this time anticipated trouble with the warriors of Balatok and Besao, as a result of their having killed six men from those towns. The victims had ostensibly come down to the Abra river to fish, but, judging by previous experience, the Tinguian believed them to be in search of heads, and acted accordingly.
This last account was heard in Manabo, a town near to the Igorot settlements of the Upit river, and may be influenced by the beliefs held in that section. Certain individuals appear to have intimate dealings with the natural spirits, in some instances even being joined to them in marriage.
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