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Updated: May 7, 2025
She faced the east, gazing over the forested mountain ranges, and called to the spirits of the past generation there: "A-ni'-to ad Bar'-lig su-ma-a-kay'-yo ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka-nen si mu'-teg." As she brought her sacred objects back down the mountain another woman stood alone by the little fire on the crest.
As was stated in a previous chapter, with the one exception of toothache, all injuries, diseases, and deaths are caused directly by a-ni'-to. In certain ceremonies the ancestral a-ni'-to, are urged to care for living descendants, to protect them from a-ni'-to that seek to harm and children are named after their dead ancestors, so they may be known and receive protection.
When one walks alone in the mountain trail he is often aware that an a-ni'-to walks close beside him; he feels his hair creeping on his scalp, he says, and thus he knows of the a-ni'-to's presence.
Why or how these various changes occur the Igorot does not understand. In many respects the dreamer has seen the a-ni'-to world in great detail. He has seen that a-ni'-to are rich or poor, old or young, as were the persons at death, and yet there is progression, such as birth, marriage, old age, and death.
After death the spirit receives a new name, though its nature is unchanged, and it goes about in a body invisible to the eye of man yet unchanged in appearance from that of the living person. There seems to be no idea of future rewards or punishments, though they say a bad a-ni'-to is sometimes driven away from the others.
When an a-ni'-to dies or changes its form it may become a snake and the Igorot never kills a snake, except if it bothers about his dwelling; or it may become a rock there is one such a-ni'-to rock on the mountain horizon north of Bontoc; but the most common form for a dead a-ni'-to to take is li'-fa, the phosphorescent glow in the dead wood of the mountains.
They always point to the surrounding mountains as the home of the a-ni'-to, but straight above to chayya, the sky, as the home of the spirit of the beheaded. The old men say the pin-teng' has a head of flames. There in the sky the pin-teng' repeat the life of those living in the pueblo.
Igorot society contains no person who is so malevolent as to cause another sickness, insanity, or death. So charitable is the Igorot's view of his fellows that when, a few years ago, two Bontoc men died of poison administered by another town, the verdict was that the administering hands were directed by some vengeful or diabolical a-ni'-to. As a people the Bontoc Igorot are healthful.
Fu-ta-tu is a bad a-ni'-to, or the name applied to the a-ni'-to which is supposed to be ostracized from respectable a-ni'-to society. Besides these various forms of a-ni'-to or spirits, the body itself is also sometimes supposed to have an existence after death. Li-mum' is the name of the spiritual form of the human body.
It is safe to say that one feast is held daily in Bontoc by some family to appease or win the good will of some a-ni'-to. At death the spirit of a beheaded person, the pin-teng', goes above to chayya, the sky. The old men are very emphatic in this belief.
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