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Updated: June 4, 2025
Mountain-side sementeras are frequently abandoned after a few years' service, as they are supposed to be exhausted, whereas fertilization would restore them. Seed planting Pad-cho-kan' is the name of the sementera used as a rice seed bed. The seed is planted in the beds after they have been thoroughly worked and softened, the soil usually being turned three times.
It is probable that the pueblo owes its location to the salt springs, although adjoining it to the south is an arable valley now filled with rice sementeras, which may first have drawn the people. The hot springs slowly raise their water to the surface, where it flows along in shallow streams.
Inasmuch as the water must flow from one to another, there are practically no two sementeras on the same level which are irrigated from the same water course. The result is that every plat is upheld on its lower side, and usually on one or both ends, by a terrace wall. Much of the mountain land is well supplied with bowlders and there is an endless water-worn supply in the beds of all streams.
But should sleep chance to overtake him in his tiresome watch at the sementeras, and should some one turn off and steal his water, the thief will get clubbed if caught, and will forfeit his own share of water when his next period arrives. The third method of irrigation lifting the water by direct human power is not much employed by the Igorot.
As in the case of Som-kad', all old, rich men are buried in a plat of ground close to the last fringe of dwellings on the west of the pueblo, but all other persons except those who lose their heads are buried close to their dwellings in the camote sementeras.
From these poles a low jerking line runs over the sementeras, over which are stretched at right angles parallel cords within a few feet of the fruit heads. These parallel cords are also jerked, and their movement, together with that of the leaves depending from them, is sufficient to keep the birds away.
Mang-i-lot', an old man whose ten children are all dead, and who says his property is no longer of value because he has no children with whom to leave it, is believed to have spoken truthfully when he said he has the following sementeras in the five following geographic areas surrounding the pueblo: Geographic area Number of sementeras Number of cargoes produced Magkang 6 15 Kogchog 3 5 Felas 1 8
Sometimes they retain a girdle and tuck an apron of camote leaves or of weeds under it before and behind. I have frequently come upon women entirely naked climbing up and down the steep, stone dikes of their sementeras while weeding them, and also at the clay pits where Samoki women get their earth for making pottery.
A shrimp-like crustacean obtained in the irrigated sementeras is also boiled and eaten entire. A few mollusks are eaten after being cooked. One, called kitan, I have seen eaten many times; it is a snail-like animal, and after being boiled it is sucked into the mouth after the apex of the shell has been bitten or broken off.
In larger sementeras a proportional rental is charged a rental of about 33 1/3 per cent. All rents are paid after the crops are harvested. Inheritance and bequest As regards property the statement that all men are born equal is as false in Igorot land as in the United States.
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