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The old men say that a man of Mayinit came to live in Bontoc, as he had married a Bontoc woman and she wished to live in her own town. After a while the man died. His friends came to the funeral, and a snake, o-wug', also came. When the people wept, o-wug' cried also.
According to Igorot custom he should not have taken grasshoppers past a house in which such a ceremony was being performed. The breach made it necessary to hold another ceremony, killing another chicken. Old men from Mayinit, the pueblo of Dadaag, came to Ganang and told Mowigas he would have to pay 3 pesos for his conduct, or Mayinit would come over and destroy the town.
If one pueblo, in the area exceeds another in the strength and unpleasantness of its "dried" meat it is Mayinit, where on the occasion of a visit there a very small piece of meat jammed on a stick-like a "taffy stick" and joyfully sucked by a 2-year-old babe successfully bombarded and depopulated our camp.
Aside from this universal medium of exchange the characteristic production of each community, in a minor way, answers for the community the needs of a medium of exchange. Samoki buys many things with her pots, such as tobacco and salt from Mayinit; cloth from Igorot comerciantes, breechcloth and basi from the Igorot producers; chickens, pigs, palay, and camotes from neighboring pueblos.
It does not go far north of Mayinit, or go at all regularly far west, because those pueblos within access of the China Sea coast buy salt evaporated from sea water by the Ilokano of Candon.
To-day the large ollas are worth about 2 pesos, and carabaos are valued at from 40 to 70 pesos. Mayinit salt passes in barter to about as many pueblos as do the Samoki pots, but while the pots go westward to the border of the Bontoc culture area the salt passes far beyond the eastern border, being bartered from pueblo to pueblo.
Early in January, 1903, Mowigas, of the pueblo of Ganang, cut and destroyed the grasshopper basket of Dadaag, of the pueblo of Mayinit, and also slightly cut Dadaag with his ax, but did not attempt to kill him. The cause of the assault was this: Mowigas had killed a chicken and was having a ceremonial in his house at the time Dadaag passed with his basket of grasshoppers.
Mayinit uses her salt in much the same way, only probably to a less extent. Salt is not consumed by all the people. To-day, as formerly, the live pig and hog and pieces of pork and carabao meat are used a great deal in barter. As far back as the pueblo memory extends pigs have been used to purchase a particularly good breechcloth called "balakes," made in Balangao, three days east of Bontoc.
In Bontoc, Samoki, Titipan, Mayinit, and Ganang salt is either sprinkled on the rice after it is dished out or is tasted from the finger tips during the eating. In some pueblos, as at Tulubin, almost no salt is eaten at any time. When rice alone is eaten at a meal a family of five adults eats about ten Bontoc manojo of rice per day. Beans are cooked in the form of a thick soup, but without salt.
He paid the money, whereas the basket was worth only one-sixth the price. Trouble was thus averted, and the individuals reconciled. In this case the two pueblos are friends, but Mayinit is much stronger than Ganang, and evidently took advantage of the fact. In January, 1903, a woman and her son, of Titipan, stole camotes of another Titipan family.
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