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When a man passes alone in the mountains anito are very prone to walk with him; however, if the traveler carries a si-na-la-wi'-tan, anito will not molest him, since they are afraid when they see the formidable array of barbs. Kay-yan' is a gracefully formed blade not used in hunting, and employed less in war than is si-na-la-wi'-tan.
On March 19, 1903, wise, rich Som-kad', of ato Luwakan, and the oldest man of Bontoc, heard an anito saying, "Come, Som-kad'; it is much better in the mountains; come." The sick old man laboriously walked from the pabafunan to the house of his oldest son, where he had for nearly twenty years taken his food, and there among his children and friends he died on the night of March 21.
This last argument is considered to be a very important one, as all Igorot are fond of feasting, and it is assumed that the anito has the same desire. The night following the burial all relatives stay at the house lately occupied by the corpse. On the day after the burial all the men relatives go to the river and catch fish, the small kacho.
In almost every locality, every hut has its Anito with its special place, its own dwelling; there are Anito pictures and images, certain trees and, indeed, certain animals in which some Anito resides.
For four days he faithfully submitted to flaxseed poultices, but on the fifth day we found a woman in-sup-ak' at her professional task in the kitchen. She held the sore foot in her lap, and stroked it; she murmured to the anito to go away; she bent low over the foot, and about a dozen times she well feigned vomiting, and each time she spat out a large amount of saliva.
One, they say, does not die until the anito calls and then one always goes into a goodly life which the old men often see and tell about. In a well-organized and developed modern enterprise the death of a principal man causes little or no break. This is equally true in Igorot life.
Its baths are now relatively infrequent, and its need of them as it plays on the dirt floor of the dwelling or pabafunan even more urgent than when it spent most of its time in the carrying blanket. Babes have no cradles or stationary places for rest or sleep. A babe, slumbering or awake, is never laid down alone because of the fear that an anito will injure it.
When there was no rice or chicken for food, we got them for you as was the custom of our fathers so you will not come to make us sick. If another anito seeks to harm us, you will protect us. When we make a feast and ask you to come to it, we want you to do so; but if another anito kills all your relatives, there will be no more houses for you to enter for feasts.
That the belief in spirits is the basis of Igorot religion is shown in the fact that each person or each household has the necessary power and knowledge to intercede with the anito. No class of persons has been differentiated for this function, excepting the limited one of the dream-appointed insupak or anito exorcists.
A ceremony, not witnessed by the writer, is said to take place when evil spirits have persistently annoyed the mother and the child, when the delivery is long overdue, or when an anito child has been born to a human mother. The husband and his friends arm themselves with long knives or head-axes, and enter the dwelling, where they kill a rooster.
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